Team Parkinson®

I’ve been in training for the San Francisco Marathon for months now, years actually, because I try to run at last two to three marathons a year, so I don’t have to work my up from the bottom each time I want to take on another race. 

My last big race was on June 6th in Norway, at the Norwegian Mountain Marathon.  I ran the  half-marathon with my friend Roar Eikenes, who I  first met at the San Francisco Marathon in 2006.  Roar has had Parkinson’s for about ten years and has finished more than 50 marathons, ten of them after his diagnosis.  I ran hard and finished in about 2 hours. 

Now I’ve got to start cranking up  my mileage and my speed both if I’m going to try to match or better last year’s race in San Francisco.  My time last year was 4:23.22, just 8 minutes over a Boston  qualifying time.  So if I can knock just 30 seconds per mile off last year’s effort, I’ll have a qualifier…without needing the “charity exemption.”  Today, however, wasn’t a good start. I pulled a muscle in my thigh and it was painful just walking the dog., so no run today.  I’ll give it another day tomorrow and see if it gets better on its own.  Til next time, see ya.

John