It’s been a kind of hectic week here in the studio, just plain busy mixed in with the unavoidable distractions that life sometimes throws at us. In the chaos of yesterday, I realized that I was remiss in not mentioning that my nephew, Greg, had run in his first Boston Marathon on Monday.
He has run for quite some time now as a recreational runner and in recent years has blossomed, finishing near the front in some races and winning a few along the way. Even in his early forties, his times have kept improving due to his hard work and dedication to his running.
So it was a thrill Monday to have the race on as he ran in the rain on those Boston streets. Throughout the race, I kept getting text messages with his times at different points in the race and was impressed by the constancy of his pace which hardly wavered at all throughout the day.
At the end of the day, in less than idea conditions with rain and wind, he came across the line in a personal best 2:53:40. That placed him at 1348 overall out of a field of about 30,000 runners and 160th (out of about 2700) in his class– an impressive finish for his first effort on the hallowed course.
I was really proud to see Greg have such a great effort and to have a satisfying result to go along with it. It’s a wonderful thing to witness someone achieving personal bests through their own hard efforts. My hope is that Greg’s three young sons understand the great lesson he is setting before them and will use it to find something of their own to focus on and work hard at so that they may set their own personal bests throughout their lives.
That would make this race even more of a personal triumph.
So, well done, Greg. Long may you run.
Redtree Times 