Running a marathon is all in the preparation running long slow distances each day for a few months before the race.

TARGETS.

Moreover, it is all about setting personal targets and achieving them. Everyone needs targets.

In the first race, finishing is all the target you need. Completing the race brings profound joy. In the next races, finishing just a fraction better than before is all you need. Personal Bests too bring a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Most of us are never going to set a world record, win the Olympics, or the Boston marathon. All we need is to beat our own accomplishments in that way we get better.

When I started running, the Boston qualifying time was three and a half hours for all ages. I ran 3:27 in my second race. However, as the years progressed the qualifying time was reduced to 3:10, then 3 hours, and then 2:50. Each time the qualification was lowered I, and my friends, would just beat it, so that at Boston I was always running with the same people. If the time had been lowered to 2:40 I feel sure that we would have all made that qualification too. Targets are powerful motivators. Indeed, I blame the Boston organizers for my never having run a marathon below 2:40 they didn't set the target low enough.

Yet sometimes, one has to move on beyond the original targets: new challenges arise. In Columbus, Ohio, one day, at about 13 miles, in the middle of a stride, I collapsed. I had torn my hamstring and despite trying to stumble on, I had to give up. I sat on the curb and burst into tears. My first failure was at my fiftieth marathon.

As I sat there an acquaintance came running by and he asked what was wrong. Sobbing miserably, I told him. "Oh!" he said, "that's OK. Once you quit in a race, it's easier to quit the next time. In fact, I think I've done enough. I'll stop too." With that he sat down next to me and eventually helped me hobble those miles back to the start. My target immediately became the next race it had to be my fiftieth completion.

In any personal endeavor, set your targets, accept your wins and your losses. It is worth the effort.

Sixteen miles may not seem much preparation for a 26-mile race, but it was the peak distance on a base of some 60 miles of long distance running each week for the past three months and that's what counts.

One has in one an inherent capability of exercising hard for two hours. To do that one uses all the carbohydrates as glycogen in your body. To

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