Every couple months I spend time researching others who have embraced a similar journey - the quest for a Boston Qualifying Time. Most often it's on YouTube to learn about form or strength exercises or some kind of myofascial release technique to relieve a nagging pain. Many of those I "meet" via their online presence were runners in the past who rediscovered their passion. Some have never been athletic and perhaps were once obese and have lost an incredible amount of weight. The majority are from someone
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This past week I stumbled across a video on YouTube by Scott Partenheimer (as the first "guest" of the blog, I'd like to thank Scott for his efforts) - a regular dude who needed to run 26.2 miles in a superhuman time of 3 hours and 10 minutes in order to qualify for Boston. Then I poked around and saw HE has a blog documenting his efforts. He qualified running the Philadelphia Marathon and will be running Boston a week from today on Monday, April 20th. His message is about hard work and heart, and learning from his own experience. He doesn't employ the assistance of others or use tricky technology. As I was read about his path, I was inspired. Then I thought, "YOU might be able to inspire." And that is one of the reasons I'm doing this, even if the only people I inspire are my wife and kids. And myself.
To that end I made an adjustment to the site over the weekend. I added a couple pages, and decided it won't be "anonymous" any longer. So, here it is. A blog by a father, a husband, a guy who at times works 60-90 hours a week in a leadership position with a technology company, and who works in the community as a board member with a non-profit serving disadvantaged kids.
I added a page to document my races and personal bests to show how far I've come, and how far I need to go. I added another page to highlight my influences along the way. And I'll add another "About Me" page at some point over the next couple days or weeks. You'll see actual pictures of ME along the way (the photo above is from BattleFrog a few weeks ago). I'll also see what I can do to add maps and activity here (anyone with advice on how to link Garmin Connect data directly to a blog, I welcome your suggestions). Stay tuned for more!
I'll post pictures of my experience and lessons I learned along the way. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them about my journey and my opinion, understanding I'm just a regular dude. I'm NOT a runner. I may be training for a 5K later this month and the Space Coast Marathon in November, and ultimately for the Boston Marathon. I may have finished third in my age group in the BattleFrog 5K Obstacle Race and the Wounded Warrior / Lone Sailor 5K last week. But I'm NOT a runner. I'm just a former athlete trying to find my old athletic self in an effort to inspire those closest to me - my wife and kids - and to show crazy things are possible with consistent effort. Most importantly, I'm doing this so I can bring my best energy to every moment of my life.