Why am I doing this?

Monday I biked a bunch as usual and Tuesday I jumped on the elliptical for 4 miles. Kind of like a broken record, huh? Good news is that my knee just kind of magically felt better on Monday, it's great now. Weird how that works...

During some of my long runs, I have sometimes posed the question of "Why am I doing this?" to myself. Well, it's time for me to come out with the answer...

It's fairly simple, really. My sister ran the Detroit Marathon last year, her second one, and she was doing everything she could to qualify for Boston. My parents, my brother, and I went down to cheer her on and we stationed ourselves near the finish. I backtracked on the course by myself so that I could spot her and let my parents know that she was coming so they would be ready with their cameras. Her qualifying time for Boston was 3:40 and she predicted that she'd probably be finishing around that time. I kept watching pace groups go by, and I got worried....but at the same time, I was watching runners giving all that they had for the last mile of the race of their lives. Eventually, I saw my sister right near the 3:40 pace group and she looked absolutely exhausted...but then again, I don't blame her. I cheered her on, starting jogging to stay with her, and eventually ran to catch up with my parents. She finished in 3:39:06, qualifed for Boston, and later told me that I helped her stay strong through the finish because she absolutely had nothing left. It was then that I knew that I really had to experience this for myself.

I also remember an assignment I had to do in high school - we had to make a list of goals that we wanted to accomplish in our lifetime. One of those was "run the Boston Marathon"...and I wasn't even a runner at that point! Now, I figured this year gives me just as good of a chance to do it as any point in the future, especially if I end up going to med school or grad school. It's been tough, but I feel like I've put in all the training and I really feel good about this Sunday.

My sister didn't get to run the Chicago Marathon this past Sunday because of a lingering foot injury, but she'll still be able to run Boston in 2007 because BQ times are valid for a year and a half...meaning she can still use her time from last year's Detroit Marathon. She also has told me that Boston may be her last marathon, at least for a while, so wouldn't that be cool if I can qualify and we can run Boston together?

All I know is I gotta take care of business first. 4 more days....