About Me:

The crabby old runner is actually a retired Firefighter, Fire truck driver, Fire Captain and District Fire Chief. For 33 years I ran to stay in shape because I had a physically demanding job and because running is hard.

 

Some of us, particularly runners and firefighters, are so perverse that we choose to take on the hardest tasks, including half and full Marathons.

 

Friends and relatives think we are nuts. They may be right, but do they understand the reward system? Do they understand how it feels to finish a marathon? I cried like a baby when I finished my first. Since then I have been quite manly about it. Seventeen times keeping my tears to myself.

 

Age changes a lot of things. My running has slowed, but less from age than from laziness. I have also learned a lot about me, about running and about training. I am no expert, yet my experience, 40 years of it, gives me some things to share with runners old and new about running and Marathons.

 

Running 26 miles is like writing a book. It is hard. It takes a long time. It takes training. And it seems to go so slow! It takes persistence and endurance. 

 

So I am always amused and bemused by those who think runners are crazy. Likewise, since my novel, The Milk Market, was published I am amused and bemused by those who say they would have changed this or that, added this or that. They have not written a book, much less a work of fiction, and they haven’t run a Marathon. How do they know so much about either?

 

It makes me crabby.