Here is my brother as he's approaching the finish line of the Houston Marathon last weekend. He ran this marathon in 5 hours 23 minutes and some seconds...wooohooo. Way to go Aggie Ben. I was priveleged enough to run the last 6.5 miles or so with him as a surprise. I am truly proud of his accomplishment for this first marathon. I'm also glad that he's now considering another marathon in the future to try and break the 5 hour barrier, because I know he has what it takes to do it!!

It was this short run with him that allowed the bug to truly nibble on me. I've been running on our treadmill this winter and I've toyed with the idea of running long distance. Even at the Saturday morning Weight Watcher meeting that my wife and I attend our leader has been talking about goals for 2007 and has each of us thinking of a goal for the year. While most are considering a weight loss goal, I've decided that my goal for 2007 will be to train for a marathon. I've commited to the Oklahoma City Memorial Half Marathon on April 29 this year as a step towards that goal. I think it would be awesome to run with my brother in perhaps the Houston Marathon in January 2008.

This makes me feel so great to have made such a decision as to run again. I hated running in most of my high school years, yet I played basketball, so go figure. Until my senior year I was always the last to finish "running the lines" on the basketball court. Something happened my senior and running suddenly became enjoyable and when it did, I went from the back of the pack to at or near the front of the pack. I"m not sure who was more amazed, me or my coach. Anyway, I again started to run in 1984-5 when I lived in Wyoming where the city I lived in built a recreation center that included an indoor running track that was an 1/8th of a mile. I worked up to doing 5-8 miles per day 5 days a week and again felt great. However, I eventually started doing more travelling for my job and the running ended around 1988. Well, almost 20 years later and after my heart surgery, here I am feeling the need, the want, the desire to run again. I've run almost 35 miles since the first of the year, not a long distance but for me it makes me feel alive again. Thanks Lord for a second chance.