On your marks.
Get set.
Go!
I scheduled this post to go live the moment my Boston Marathon wave is set to set off from Hopkinton on Marathon Monday - 11:15 AM EST.
If you happen to check this between now and 2:30(ish) PM, text RUNNER to 234567 and then reply with my bib number: 27338, and you'll get updates as I run, and run, and run. Or, after Monday, visit the B.A.A. marathon results page to see how it went, and back here for the race recap I'll post at some point soon.
If you're somewhere on the course, watch for me in my red Dream Big! shirt, with Dream Big! on the front, and the names of all of my supporters and their honorees on my back.
Over the next 26.2 miles and 3 1/4 (ish) hours, as I soak up the scene, and savor every step, my mind will no doubt wander near and far, and across this whole experience. I'll be thinking of...
- Stepping to the starting line again after failing again and again to get there.
- The power of team and its impact on this scrappy little nonprofit doing big things for girls through sports.
- My daughter's grit ("She's a warrior," said her coach at the team banquet that capped this season).
- My wife crushing it.
- The difference a coach makes (and how to run fast).
- Running like "an old lady on a frozen lake."
- Whether I am passing or being passed, the importance of running my own race.
- The incredible generosity of friends, family, and colleagues to Dream Big!
This past Friday morning, I had my final training run (809 miles since I started logging it all back in November). Under clear blue skies, after dropping the kids at school, I ran in to work - including along the final mile of the race course. For the first time, when I went right on Hereford, and just before that famous final turn onto Boylston Street, I looked up and noticed this banner:
How right that is. It must have been placed there, I thought, by someone who has run this race before.
I know that, when I see that banner again on race day, my body will be running on empty, but my heart will be full - and, after all the words spent here on this blog and elsewhere to describe this experience, there is one and only one word that will draw me up the final little ascent, and fuel and focus me for the final strides from there to the finish line. And that word is:
Gratitude.
Get set.
Go!
I scheduled this post to go live the moment my Boston Marathon wave is set to set off from Hopkinton on Marathon Monday - 11:15 AM EST.
If you happen to check this between now and 2:30(ish) PM, text RUNNER to 234567 and then reply with my bib number: 27338, and you'll get updates as I run, and run, and run. Or, after Monday, visit the B.A.A. marathon results page to see how it went, and back here for the race recap I'll post at some point soon.
If you're somewhere on the course, watch for me in my red Dream Big! shirt, with Dream Big! on the front, and the names of all of my supporters and their honorees on my back.
Over the next 26.2 miles and 3 1/4 (ish) hours, as I soak up the scene, and savor every step, my mind will no doubt wander near and far, and across this whole experience. I'll be thinking of...
- Stepping to the starting line again after failing again and again to get there.
- The power of team and its impact on this scrappy little nonprofit doing big things for girls through sports.
- My daughter's grit ("She's a warrior," said her coach at the team banquet that capped this season).
- My wife crushing it.
- The difference a coach makes (and how to run fast).
- Running like "an old lady on a frozen lake."
- Whether I am passing or being passed, the importance of running my own race.
- The incredible generosity of friends, family, and colleagues to Dream Big!
This past Friday morning, I had my final training run (809 miles since I started logging it all back in November). Under clear blue skies, after dropping the kids at school, I ran in to work - including along the final mile of the race course. For the first time, when I went right on Hereford, and just before that famous final turn onto Boylston Street, I looked up and noticed this banner:
How right that is. It must have been placed there, I thought, by someone who has run this race before.
I know that, when I see that banner again on race day, my body will be running on empty, but my heart will be full - and, after all the words spent here on this blog and elsewhere to describe this experience, there is one and only one word that will draw me up the final little ascent, and fuel and focus me for the final strides from there to the finish line. And that word is:
Gratitude.
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