Anuja’s status:  The level of ignorance and selfishness in human beings is overwhelming sometimes. Ask yourself this...when is the last time I did something selfless...something that made this world a little better and less ugly....if it takes you more than 1 minute to answer that question, there is a problem.

My response:  You're making a difference, angel! And that counts for so much. Your example will have its ripple effect =)

Anuja’s reply:  Thanks Greggie...just seems sometimes that I'm the ONLY one around me that gives a hoot about other human beings. I can't be the only one. Everyone else needs to STEP UP!!!!!

My reply:  You will get there and I will get there.  You know I believe in what you are preaching and we will be remembered for all the people we have impacted.  Keep doing your good and smile about those you already have impacted, knowing that only more and more are to come.  The best feeling is when you have helped someone change for the better.  Don't get frustrated about the resistance, look forward to the change to come!  The pursuit is the best part after all =)


As much as I, or anyone, wants to just bask in the ideal world we see in our minds, we would get bored in being able to comfortably relax and enjoy the situation.  Being a motivated individual, you have to keep yourself moving.  Part of what drives you is the constant push to keep doing and improving.

Anuja is a special, special lady and my absolute closest friend.  She has impacted more people than she realizes.  I take that back actually; she knows how many people she has impacted, but recognizes how many more need to be helped in significant ways.  She’s not taking a pessimistic view (she’d never survive her career path if she did), only a realistic view.  She’s driven to do good and impact others in transformative, meaningful ways.  When they don’t care, their apathy drives her that much more because of how much she cares.

Believe me, the change is already getting there, and has been progressively for years now.  Us that are motivated to this degree, because it is not just our passion, but our life, know it is happening, but we don’t settle for that because all we want is for the lessening (but ever so large majority) remaining to be helped in so many ways.  They complain about their lives and we want to help, bnut ultimately it’s up to them.  We’ll get them though because we never bask in our lives longer than a minute because although it makes us happy, what makes us happiest is continuing to pursue the change we live by and never stopping.

It’s been a weird year this year since it’s the first time I had not had a run that I was training for in the future.  Hanging up my sneakers, so to speak, after Boston last year was equally as freeing as it was weird.  I learned so much about myself, my disability and how everything works together for me during the 5 years or so that I ran, and ran as though it were a full-time job.

Man is not supposed to run 26.2 miles after surviving a ruptured brain aneurysm and stroke, at least not to the degree that I built and trained my body.  Before I started seriously weight lifting, I could run 70 miles a week as though it were nothing.  I went out and ran 5 miles in the morning and did another 5 in the afternoon.  It was amazing and freeing.

Then, when I started increasing my weights at the gym with the intention of strengthening my right side overall, that was when my left side really started being compromised in my running.  My left side has always taken the brunt of the force to compensate for my stroke-impaired right side.  70 miles each week, 4 marathons and a few years later, my ligaments were all kinds of tight and strained.

All that increased pressure to balance my body so that my left side naturally took on what it knew it could just gradually tore me apart.  It’s a horrible feeling to have your body fall apart.  It’s horrible feeling your body collapse, give way.  After running for all these years and near consecutive days, I deserve a break.  It didn’t mean that watching Boston wasn’t a weird sensation to feel because it definitely was different.

I don’t know when I will run a marathon again.  I know I need a break.  I’d like a long enough break to let my body recover so I could possibly train fully to run the actual 3:30 marathon I know I can run.  If my body can heal the way I’m sure it can and will in the next couple years, I’m sure I can start training up again if I want.  For now, I still have my stamina to run 5Ks, etc.  I know that I need a break, and stopping running after Boston last year was a necessity, however, don’t count me out yet.  Davila is older than me and she shocked everyone.  If the right time comes and I can motivate myself over the mental hurdle of marathon running, then yeah you just might see me tackling Boston again…but that’s a few years and many hundred blog posts away :-)

Oh yeah, and congrats to my man Cody Crutchley-- fellow McDaniel grad and friend-- for his PR at Boston this year.  So glad that someone I knew could run in my absence and hit the course the way it deserves!

My previous employer had an alumni event on Monday night.  When I left, they were absolutely in a spiral of sorts with the recession hitting hard and morale plummeting.  Going back, I knew that the only way the company could have gone was up since then.

Positive change has seemed to happen.  I saw one of my former colleagues who still works there and he filled me in on everything that has been changed and updated since I left.  It sounds like a lot of good has been done.  After I left, it sounds like more people left to pursue other things and, an almost, restructuring of the department happened.  Seeing how things have gone, I actually found myself wondering if I should have left or what would have happened if I didn’t leave.

I was sort of in a funk about it for a while, but then really started thinking.  In the time that I left that job I got my personal trainer certification, passed my driver’s license test, finished editing my book and have been actively pitching it.  Oh yeah, I ran the Boston Marathon too, for the second time, during that time period.  There has been a lot of good that I have done since my time at CEB ended—good that I most likely would not have been able to do if I stayed there and continued my long, hellish commute.

After reminding myself about the things I have accomplished between then and now, I realized that I have nothing to be ashamed about.  I reminded myself that everything truly happens the way it is supposed to happen and, when I reminded myself of that, I received one of my universal reminders that everything will be alright within minutes afterwards, which I will explain in a later post.  Point is, I’m feeling better and believe that I don’t have to accept anything because everything is happening as it should.  Everything will continue to happen that way because I have not changed how I live life, and the way I live life never allows me to miss any opportunity that arises.  My life’s been pretty fulfilling thus far; that will only continue.  That’s all I need and will continue to have in the life I live.

So I haven’t watched the coverage yet, but I followed the race on Twitter (great job by the person in charge of updating Twitter every minute, by the way!) and tracked my friend through the tracking device who qualified earlier this year in DC after less than an inch of snow caused the Myrtle Beach marathon to be cancelled.

When I heard that Ryan Hall was running a 4:40 average mile pace at one point, I knew that he was going to flame out again like he always seems to do.  The boy has speed and stamina; if he just held it for the last 10K he would actually have a chance to win.  Use the downhills to take advantage of the pack.  Sure, your quads burn but it’s all worth it to get that 1st place finish.  Desiree Davila is a beast, and it’s not her fault at all what happened.  Those Kenyans could have just run their race the way Davila did; the way any runner should do at Boston, but when hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line, drafting is the name of the game to conserve energy and win.  Second position is definitely the best place to be up until the last 400 yards or so, especially at Boston it seems.

The true story in my opinion, other than my buddy Cody Crutchley earning a new PR with a 2:51 marathon at Boston, was the wheelchair race.  Ernst Van Dyk, 9 time winner, loses by less than 10 feet…1 second!  Masazumi Soejima of Japan beat out the 9-time consecutive winner.  I didn’t see video, just read the updates as it was happening and that alone was incredible!  Power of the body…and the mind, baby.

All in all, it sounds like an amazing day took place along the path from Hopkinton to Boylston Street.  I missed out on the Wellesley girls this year, but that’s okay.  My girlfriend probably wouldn’t be too happy with me kissing the screaming college girls anyway ;-)  Congratulations to every runner who participated this year.  You may not realize right away, but it truly is a memorable and transformative run.  26.2 miles or bust.  Whatever the outcome, just be proud that you made it there and you got to run the world’s most prestigious race.

Good luck to everyone running today!  Last year this time I was running it.  Two years before that I was winning my division.  Now I'm on to other adventures and pursuing other achievements, which all started with my first Boston run.  With that, best of luck to everyone.  The climb to and descent from Newton will change your life!  Enjoy each increasingly strenuous step =)