Unfinished Business

I'm a fairly private person and I never thought that I'd ever have the desire to post a blog of my own but during my preparation for my first ever Marathon (Chicago 2007), I stumbled onto many different posts from people from all walks of life - some who had to overcome great personal challenges and illnesses in order to be there and I was both inspired by their determination and appreciative for how fortunate I am to have my health and happiness.

I've never been too keen on life goals and/or New Years resolutions (and many of those that I tried to set were never met...although I did manage to kick 64~96oz a day Diet Coke habit 2 years a ago) but in 2007 I turned 35 and I wanted to run (and finish) the Chicago Marathon. 2008 was supposed to be the year of my first Jimmy Buffet concert but I was one of the > 10,000 runners that were diverted during the first ever Chicago Marathon that had to be stopped due to heat.

A lot happened that day, I have a few thoughts I'll post up later but the purpose of this blog is not to dwell on what might have been, or who did or didn't prepare for what (as a participant or an organizer) but rather serve 3 purposes:

1) To offer tips and words of encouragement to newbies. Especially those of us "larger folks" out there. Note: I'm not so full of myself as to think anybody should be following my advice - especially as a newbie who hasn't even managed to finish the damn thing yet but I've made many mistakes along the way and also learned a lot about myself and figure if it helps somebody that's good enough for me.

2) To see if there are any others out there like me who have "unfinished business" in Chicago who at least want to get together at least online to offer tips/encouragement and discuss what they've learned and plan on doing differently as they prepare for 2008. Personally I think it would be neat if a large group of us incompletes printed up some shirts for race day but I'm still in search of something clever to say that doesn't seem as negative as some of the gag shirts out there thus far.

3) This is the big one for me. WHY? - As the race approached, I had a lot of encouragement from my extended family but 2 years ago when I weighed 255lbs and started making mention of participating in some events and hopefully "someday" a Marathon to so some select friends and family, "why on earth would you do that?" was a pretty common response - so much so that when I got serious about training it was done in secret (in fact when I registered for the 2007 race on Jan 1, I didn't even tell my wife about it for about 5 months). After the tragic death of Michigan police officer, Chad Schieber that Sunday and then of an Olympic runner in New York a few weeks later, WHY? has been coming up again quite a bit more. At first, I'd just get a little mad at the media for blowing things out of proportion and shrug off the question. But, when my 6 year old and I had a conversation recently that started with "did the policeman who died in the Marathon have children?" (he had 3) - and if it was dangerous to run a Marathon why would I do it, that led to a lengthy conversation about different kinds of risks we all take in life by both doing things and by not doing things. - I have no doubt that I'll finish the 2008 Marathon and am starting to wonder if more will be in my future but the more I think about the WHY?, the more answers I come up with and I'd like to share mine and learn others.