The Journey Begins!

Welcome Race Fans! I decided to chronicle my path towards the Bank of America Chicago Marathon that I will be running on October 12th, 2008. Not much great real estate information here, but for my friends and family who get tired of hearing me complain about how my knees hurt and how hot it was on my last long run, I am giving you the option to read about my tale of woe, rather than hearing about it on a daily basis. The journey begins on June 10th!

June 10th, 2008 – Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a Thousand Miles begins with the first step”. Well, although not quite a thousand miles, my journey began today. On Sunday, October 12th, 2008, I, a seasoned and grizzly distance running veteran (one previous marathon – Memphis 2007) will participate and complete the Bank of America Marathon in Chicago, Illinois. At 42 years old and 205 pounds maybe there are better pursuits. Planting a tree, washing my wife’s car, finishing my drywall project in my basement – too easy. I want to run another marathon. After all, I am a runner.

My passion for running began about a year and a half ago in Miami. While there on business, I looked out of my 28th floor hotel room and watched a couple running along the beach. I looked at myself – 40 years old, 230 pounds and decided that I needed a change. Thirty minutes later I went to the hotel gym and jumped on a treadmill. A mile later, I was hooked. Just like Forest Gump – “I was running”!

One mile lead to two, two lead to three. At three, I needed better shoes. With better shoes, I could run four. See where this is heading? My wife thought I was nuts. As 230 pounds turned to 220, my friends and coworkers thought I was sick. Are you losing weight? Portly Doug was turning into Running Doug!

I started entering 5K races in my area. First one, then, nearly every weekend – this was getting fun. Sometimes my wife entered too. I was getting a closet full of really cool shirts! Then, one day, it hit me – there is more to life than 5K’s. While reading Runner’s World I saw Elvis, no, not in person, but in the race advertising section. His image appeared in an advertisement for the 2007 Memphis Marathon. I would run the 2007 St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon!

To make a four-month long – long story a short one, I trained hard, ran a lot of longer races and runs in preparation, knocked myself out and gave myself a serious concussion during a beer-laden ATV accident, developed a truckload of self-doubt, never finished a long run further than 13.1 miles, entered the race and finished! I finished partly because of guts, but mostly because I could not stand the thought of having the seven-person roving Doug Peters cheering section (Consisting of my wife, mom, aunt, sisters, and significant others) see me fail. At 40 years old, it would be a bit too late to find a new family resulting from the overwhelming sense of failure associated with not finishing… Replete with custom signs (Run Doug Run, Doug Peters is #1, You can do it, etc), neon-orange boas, and a lot of enthusiasm (my sister’s art management degree and event planning experience paid off big), they powered me (or maybe pulled me) to the end.
The 2008 event will be a story with a happier ending! Not that the last one didn’t end happily (I did finish), but I want more of a “hard work + training = better results” scenario. I also plan to do this one without seeing any orange feather boas (sorry crew, but I have flashbacks of the orange boas contrasted by my mom’s white hair – it gives me instant knee pain!). This year I will be more focused and serious. Besides, I have one marathon, a handful of halfs, a 10-mile Turkey Day run, dozens of 5k’s, hundreds of Southern Illinois training miles under my belt, and more basement treadmill mile than you could count (if it’s a crime to like running on my treadmill while watching my 42”plasma TV in my climate-controlled basement better than the subdivision streets and country car-filled roads of my area, then I am guilty as charged). This year I will be ready! Just me and 45,000 perfect strangers on the streets of Chicago, no concussion, no self-doubt, no excuses. Oh, by the way, my first training run today was three miles.