The Quest Continues

One year ago, Kurt and I began to train for a sub-4 marathon in Chicago this past October. A bout with asthma/allergies in late summer hurt my training. Kurt, on the other hand, had rebounded nicely from stress fractures. By the time the race rolled around, he was ready. He'd put in the time and training -- but came up a four minutes short.

Rather than packing it in, Kurt tweeked his program and trained through the dregs of the St. Louis winter to run the Miami Tropical Marathon on January 30th, where he ran an almost identical race. The weather that day was the warmest in the month. If it had been cool in the 40s and 50s, the sub-4 would've been a done deal. Does he try again? He trained in earnest for one year, and now he's distracted with selling his house and moving to Florida, so time will tell.

Ed is most impressive, I can't even count all his walking marathons and halfs. He clocks them off in 5:35s, which is an amazingly fast time. Nashville, Chicago, Arizona, Miami, plus halfs in Palm Beach, Tampa -- did I miss any? All within one year. I think he's taking a break from devout, monk-like training because my Mother (his wife) is insistent on Ed completing household projects he's skipped during his year-long training blitz.

I got more sick of running this year than any time since my 10-year retirement from racing in 1984. I've run 1000 miles a year for each of the past 2 years, and I'm just tired. Right now, I'm on a mental break but I'm sure I'll eventually find my way back.

I do have a guaranteed entry to New York to renew this spring. It's like throwing 80 bucks to the wind to keep it alive. Otherwise, I have to put myself back in the lottery pool if I want to run NY again. I'll probably waste the money in the hope that I feel like running it in 2007. But I don't see any marathons this year, although the Goofy thing at Disney (half and full on consecutive days) has crossed my mind. Kurt?