I love the guy on Man vs. Food. I sat through a marathon recently while killing time traveling and watched him eat everything from Inferno Wings in San Jose to a five pound breakfast burrito in Denver. He beat the wings but in the battle of Man vs. Food and the burrito he bit off more than he could chew – food wins.
As for my running? Boston wins. Bust. I’m throwing in the white towel on the dream. Between traveling for work, injuries and a lot of doubt about the ability or desire to run 8 minute miles for 26.2 of them I’ve decided to pull the plug on that goal and set some new ones. I still really love running but I’ve come to the conclusion that my body and my mind are not cut out for marathons. I’ve done it once. Check. And I may still do another someday. But the thought of doing what it would take to be able to run a marathon in 3 hours and 30 minutes has beaten me. I give.
What does this mean? It means I will just be running for fun from here on out. Half marathons, trail runs, a possible (slow) marathon someday, maybe an ultra but Boston is out. I congratulate the elites and the people who make it there and they have successfully done their job in weeding out the riff raff (me).
I’ve thought about what this means for this blog. And in the end I think it marks the end of Boston or Bust as well. I need to find some other way to write but it doesn’t really make sense to keep this going if I’m eating brats, drinking beer and watching the Boston Marathon on TV. Plus I think the whole purpose of a blog is to keep it going on a much more regular basis than once a month. So goodbye blog. Goodbye blog followers. I’ll miss the comments by my Mom and my Guru (my most loyal followers) but I’ll find another way to get the thoughts out of my head and onto “paper”.
Reflecting on this most recent running push I wanted to take the time to nominate my top 5 running moments of this series.
Number 5 “Paris” – This past summer my family and I had the great opportunity of traveling from London to Paris. While there I did runs up and down the Chomp Elysses, near Roland Garros and around the Arc De Triomph. I’m sure I’ve butchered the spelling of all these places. But it really was memorable.
Number 4 “Abbey Road” – My favorite run that I did in London was up and down Abbey Road and right by the Abbey Road Studios and across the famous Beatles cross-walk. I listened to “Love, Love Me Do” more times than I can remember crossing that thing. And I almost take this for granted these days. But who knows, I may never be back there, so reflecting on the run it had to make the top five.
Number 3 “Savannah Again” – I ran the half marathon in November not too long ago. This was the site of my marathon accomplishment and brought back all kinds of memories. But one thing I can say is when you reach that mile 11 point where the marathoners go left and the half marathoners go right I couldn’t have been more happy to go right.
Number 2 “Johns Creek Chattahoochee River National Park” – My wife and I discovered trail running not too long ago and ran one day for about 3 or 4 miles on a single track trail near where we live. It was a crisp sunny morning and when we finished we both looked at each other and said that was awesome. It has me hooked on trail running and I plan to do a half marathon trail run in February as a result.
Number 1 “London Santa Run” – you’ve probably seen the pictures on FB of my wife and I when we ran the Santa Run 6K in Battersea Park in London with 1998 other Santas not too long ago. What an event. They had carrolers and an endless supply of Santas. As it was the first race I’d ever done abroad it really was perfect and kind of old school. There were no sponsor tents or expos. Just water when you’re done, a really nice medal and santa suits. Even the gear bags had old-fashioned hand printed name tags with strings given to you. I loved it. And so did my wife. Running with her was fantastic and getting into the Christmas spirit with our other Santa friends topped off the year.
Thank you all for reading and following along. I’ll keep you posted when I start to write again.
Have fun running!
Boston or Bust! 
This was another good blog but also a sad one. I always feel an “extra” connection when I read anything from you. But, I’m sure you will come up with something to write about … you are very creative in so many ways. We are proud of you, Mom and Dad
Boo-hoo! Your dream was my dream, too 😦 I’ll miss your blogs, but at least I known you’ve discovered the wonderful world of running and will keep participating in all sorts of events. Keep me posted.
G