I needed to change my life. I swore that some day I'd run a marathon. I started in Feb 2007 by running 1-2 miles. I had agreed to pace my uncle at his first 100 mile race in October. I started with a training plan geared toward a half marathon. After that I signed up for a full marathon and did that, then on and on until 100 miles.

In one full year I went from running 1-2 miles to running a 100 mile ultra marathon in 23hr 23min, placing 11th overall. I'm now running trail ultras regularly. Next year I am scheduled to run four 100 mile trail runs, and one 150 miler.

There's a certain satisfaction in setting goals and meeting those goals, and pushing the bar higher. One of my favorite quotes is - Keep pushing the "limit" and you'll discover it doesn't exist. It's much deeper than this, but in general, this is why I started.

I started running while living in Phoenix. I took a new job in Massachusetts, and I started reading about New England. I read about the Boston Marathon and thought that would be great to run that race. I lived in Massachusetts and never did run Boston, but I ran the Green Mountain Marathon on Grand Island, Vermont twice and the Foxboro Marathon (south of Boston) twice. I didn't run Boston because I would have had to cut 1/2 hour off my marathon times to qualify, and I didn't have the time to do that type of training. I considered Foxboro as "my" marathon.

I was born with a stiff skeleton and can't do sports that require quick reaction, jumps, etc., but I can run distance, and I enjoy it. I've been running for 36 years because I enjoy it, and I hope to have another 30 years of enjoyable running.