I plan to run in the 2014 (or 2015) Boston Marathon

For those that don't know, the Boston Marathon this year was attacked by a currently unknown bomber, with a currently unknown ideology. The purpose of this post isn't to recap the horror and tragedy of the events that took place, or to endlessly speculate as to who might have perpetrated the attack and why; you can turn to any U.S. news website for that. The purpose of this post is to announce that I plan to try and run in the Boston Marathon in 2014.

The main reason for this is simple: the best way to deal with terrorism is to ignore it, while simultaneously standing up to it. I'm not going to let the attack change my life, nor am I going to live in fear. There would be no point in either of those things, and both of those things is evidently what the perpetrator desires. Instead, I'm going to train for my (first ever) marathon, in hopes of qualifying for Boston. Maybe I'll qualify for next year, maybe I won't. The odds aren't fantastic; only 7.9% of all marathon runners under 34 years of age qualify, and a slightly less percentage of men under 34 manage to qualify. With that said, I'm pretty sure that if I can't manage to qualify for the 2014 Boston Marathon, I can at least manage to qualify by 2015, at least maybe.

And of course, because my readership is extremely small, I'll even let you in on part of my strategy. I plan to run in marathons in greater than 5 months time that have the highest percentage of qualifiers for the Boston Marathon, at least, those that I can reasonably manage to run in, like the Inland Trail marathon in Elyria, Ohio, or the California International marathon in Sacramento, California, or some that are in New York. (You might be wondering how these geographic locations could possibly be easy for me to participate in. It's a secret.)