BostonBound59

I grew up just a few miles from the Boston Marathon course. I developed a love for the race when as a child I would watch the race every year with my mother and four sisters in Framingham (about the 6 mile mark) where we would hand out water and yell out the names of runners published that morning in the Boston Globe. I've attended nearly every Boston Marathon since 1970. At Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School my coach Pat McMahon finished 2nd at Boston in the closest finish ever (5 seconds) up until the legendary 1982 Salazar-Beardsley duel. Pat has been a major inspiration for me over the years. Pat also competed for Ireland in the 1968 Olympic Marathon (Mexico City--where he was 12th). In 1978 at age 19 I made a futile attempt (3:46) as a sophomore at Notre Dame to qualify for Boston at the Mayor Daley Marathon (now the Chicago Marathon). I ran my first Boston in 1982 as a bandit :( in 3:27 and vowed that some day I would actually qualify and run Boston with an official number. In October 2008 at the age of 49 (after the passage of more than 26 years, two knee surgeries and the loss of 32 lbs) I finally qualified for Boston at the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pa. with a 3:23:55. I received a major boost when several members of my Flash team drove 6 hours the day before the race to cheer me along with fellow Flash Coach Rick Collopy. This blog will follow not only the Boston Marathon 2009 progress but my other running interests including coaching the Granite State Flash, training, interesting information from other runners far more knowledgeable and talented than me and last but not least the exploits of the other more talented runners in our running club as well as my family including my wife Cathy who recently ran 3:16 at the Maine Marathon (her first) in October, my oldest son who runs for Columbia University and my younger son who runs for Souhegan High School in Amherst, New Hampshire. Despite my enthusiasm for running, I'm by far the slowest runner in my family.