Crewmembers and Friends.
YOU ARE ALL AMAZING PEOPLE that I am fortunate to have encountered in my life. Amazing people that do wonderful things for other people. YOU should feel proud, and I am proud to know you.
JH, I am flabbergasted with your donation to put us in reach of $4000! WOW!!
In the last few weeks I have sent many follow up emails to all of you. These contain training stories, not outcries for more support. If you still have then and would like to open these and maybe they can inspire you to work toward your own dreams.
The following is my final pre-race entry. Before you go big, you must dream big. Then plan big. The journey has roadblocks, life and work circumstances, and other hurdles to make just getting to the starting line tough. Most of you know by know that my 2003 race season was designed to culminate in an entry to the Boston Marathon for April 2004. Seven years later, I am finally headed to that starting line!
My life changed, plans changed, and I’ll admit I did not get there in the traditional qualifying manner. (Boston sold out in less than a day this year and even qualifiers were shut out!) While my plans may have changed, been adjusted, readjusted, postponed, I am finally fulfilling my dream made so long ago of one day toeing that starting line in Hopkinton, MA to run the Boston Marathon.
Many say that admission to Boston is getting a Masters in running. I think of it more like being admitted to attend school at Harvard. Many people dream of receiving a Harvard education but few actually make it to that first day of class. . .so here is a Boston College guy in classes with the brainiacs at Hahverd. What? LET’s GO EAGLES!!!
My admission was granted because of all of you crewmembers along with the great people at Brigham and Women’s Hospital! I consider myself a spiritual person, and I am always amazed at how people are willing to help people. Not just with money, but with time, love, friendship and thoughtfulness . . . like all the support when Heather was battling cancer, or when I was regulated to a hospital bed and use of a pee bottle, (hospital issued at $25).
Every day that spring/summer of 2004 someone would visit, call, or send a meal, drop off a book, or even drag me out to the NJ Patriots baseball game in a wheelchair. Or for simply neighborly helpful deeds, like the many times without a car for some reason, I elected to walk the two miles to the train station and I never make I there, or when my kid Josh at two years decides to play hide and seek using the Hardin’s screen porch and is found by Kerry Failla, whom we had never met. Or when my old dog Casey would go on her wanders, and be returned at our door, or just when.
Runners are these types of people too. People supporting other people. .maybe that is why I love being a part of the running community. Go Highlanders! Woop Woop! I would love to be able to express how amazing the experience is to be on a starting line of a race like Boston, all the emotions felt by the collective when the gun goes off and the final stage of the journey begins for so many. So many people with differing stories of how their journey has culminated to this point in their life. Different training, ability, desired outcomes, but all here at 10am in Hopkinton, MA one common goal. To run and finish a Boston Marathon over 26 miles and 385 yards of paved Massachusetts roadways.
As the early miles are counted, I will be swept along by my crew . . . and when it gets tougher after 10 miles, I will reflect on my responsibility to do my best to be held accountable to my crew for my performance. When it gets harder than that, I will draw energy and determination from all of you and how hard you work to support and love your families and close friends. When I reach Heartbreak Hill and Boston College, I will be empowered by the love and friendships I made 20 years ago as a new transfer student and still enjoy many of those today.
When I turn down Beacon Street into Brighton, I will draw power and courage from the nearby Brigham and Women’s Hospital and what they do . .to help and support women in need of medical help, support, treatment, or just hope. This wonderful institution offers all of that . . and we are enabling that help with just under $4000 of your hard earned money to go to a institution that most of you have never visited . . . . I am SO MOST APPRECIATIVE of all of you!
Never give up on reaching for your dreams, no matter how much life tries to get in the way and crush them. . . . .. .Keep fighting and keep dreaming, and seeking ways to make them happen!! Fight for your right to be happy! DO WHAT YOU DO AND THEN Go and DO IT BIG! Happy Birthday shout outs to Tommy Roach and Robyn Battiato!
MUCH LOVE Tim aka /Dad/SMU/BO/CZAR/Roadrunner/
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