I have never considered myself a hardcore blogger but I thought this would be a good way to track my progress over what will hopefully be 5 months of training on the road to Boston. So, I guess the best place to start is why I would even be crazy enough to consider undertaking this challenge. My desire to run a marathon stems comes from many different aspects of my life. First, I want to challenge myself towards achieving a goal. Given the fact that my schedule can be extremely demanding, this year appears to be the best possible chance for me to train and complete such a gigantic goal. A second reason that I want to undertake this challenge is because I am turning 30 in 4-5 weeks from today. I know 30 may not be old to some people, but to me it represents a turning point - a time of opportunity where I can challenge myself to do something that at 30 years old I hadn't been able to do when I was younger. Lastly, and most importantly, my desire to run Boston comes from watching my wife, Renee, complete her first marathon this past April. She served as a role model of how someone can dedicate themselves towards a goal and achieve it through unwavering commitment, hard work and dedication.
I have always considered myself somewhat athletic as I played multiple sports in high school. As time progressed, I found that organized athletics turned into occasional pick up games and some cardiovascular exercise when I felt that I had to get back in shape. In the past, I have trained for much smaller races including 5k & 10k races and have generally completed these at around a 9 min / mile pace. Over the past two years, I have trained for the B.A.A Half Marathon but unfortunately haven't been able to run these races due to two unfortunate injuries - a stress fracture in my right fibula and a case of appendicitis that came on 5 days before race day.
Given what I have written, i also have a little bit of explaining to do. You may be asking, how does a 29 year old guy who runs at a 9 min / mile pace and has never run more than 11 miles get a spot in the BAA Boston Marathon that filled its registration in under 8 hours? Well, this takes some explaining but it comes from a random encounter that Renee and I had with a couple while on vacation in Europe. Renee and I were on a 13 day cruise around Europe in September of 2009. While on a day excursion to Paris we happened to meet a couple from North Andover, Ma. We asked them to take a picture of us with the Eiffel Tower in the back ground at which point Renee noticed that the gentleman had a B.A.A Marathon jacket on. By chance, he and his wife happened to be sitting behind us on the 3 hour bus ride back to the cruise ship. After 3 hours, Renee and I had made two new friends - Tom and Lyn Licciardello. Both Tom and Lyn are extremely active and what most would consider "work out fanatics". They have both run in multiple marathons (34 straight Boston Marathon's for Tom), completed triathlons and even the Kona Iron Man. Although it may seem like an odd pairing, the friendship between Tom, Lyn, Renee and I has continued to stay strong even after the vacation. We stay in contact through emails, texts, facebook and can always talk about our mutual love of travel, partying (mostly Tom) and racing events. Its through Tom's work with the B.A.A. that I was lucky enough to get an application for a number in the B.A.A.
To this point, the farthest run I have completed has been 11 miles which makes running a 26.2 mile race seem like an a near impossible task. I figure the best way to try to tackle a daunting task like this is to break the big goal down into many smaller goals. Unfortunately, I lost a significant amount of my endurance after my surgery for appendicitis. Currently, I am running about 12-15 miles per week. My first two short term goals are 1) to get 4-5 cardio workouts per week 2) to be able to run 10 miles by January 9th as this is when L Street Running Club has their first Sunday long run.
Over the next 143 days I will continue to try to keep track of all the obstacles, difficulties, workouts and accomplishments that come up along the way. Until then ...
