Last Monday, the Boston Marathon was held, and several runners from San Marcos made the trip to run this premier race.

If you were fortunate to be able to watch the race on television, you saw the conditions that the race was run under. Very cold, windy and rainy conditions were present during the race; and to make things even worse, the wind was in gusts directly into the runners.

For a few moments there, some of the organizers were thinking of canceling the race because of the weather. Fortunately the weather let up a little; and while conditions were still bad, the runners toed the starting line and the race was on.

Local runners whose times I have been able to obtain included Tim Bayliss, who ran a very good 3:10:18 time. Kelly Parsons ran a very respectable race in 3:26:56 considering the weather conditions. Gina Moore, age 55, running her ninth Boston Marathon in a row, finished in 4:07:43, and was followed closely by Elizabeth Black-Wills in 4:08:50. Both of these women have run under four hours; but with the cold rain and headwind, they ran a good race.

A former Texas State cross-country runner (then Southwest Texas State), Ken Hausmann, at age 49 ran a 3:45:57. Maria Herman, also 49, from Buda ran a good 3:51:10 time for her race in Boston.

I have not had a chance to talk with any of the runners yet, but hope to do so shortly and hear firsthand their experiences while running the Boston Marathon.

A couple of stories that warrant recognition come from Gina Moore. If you recall, Gina was struck by a thrown bottle from a passing car and was taken to the hospital to be checked out. Fortunately, a car following the person that threw the bottle followed the car and was able to get the license plate number. Reporting it to the Hays County Sheriff's Department, the deputies there followed up on it and found the person who threw the bottle.

The hard work and continued efforts by the Hays County Sheriff's office paid off when a young man was arrested for the incident. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, and the young man was extremely sorry about the incident. He wrote a very nice letter of apology to Gina that was delivered to Gina by the sheriff's office. Consulting with the deputies in Boerne and here in Hays County, and given the clean background of the youth, she dropped the charges against the young man. He has apologized; and after being in a situation where he could have been sent to jail, he said that it would not occur again.

The second story comes from Paul Paese, a professor of physical education at Texas State University. Paul and I have been on many long runs together and run several marathons together. While I have backed off on my running marathons, Paul has continued on. His latest accomplishment comes in the form of what runners call a “streak.” This is a term used for how many consecutive days in a row you have run. As of April 15th of this year, Paul has run for 524 straight days. He started this streak on November 18, 2005. Over this time period he has run for 3,885 miles and averaged 7.4 miles per day and 52 miles per week.

What makes this accomplishment so unusual is that Paul supervises students who are doing their teaching assignments before graduation. The thing that sets this apart is that some of these students do this in other countries. Paul has run in London, England, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Paris, France during his years of running. Usually before a marathon, most runners take several days off to rest their legs and carbo-load up for the 26.2 mile run that weekend. Paul continued to run right up to the marathon; and one of the most difficult runs is the day after a marathon. He said he only did one mile after a couple of marathons, but it kept the streak alive.

I wrote an article about my experience running, or walking, during the ice storm we had here in San Marcos. I did not think anyone else was crazy enough to even be out in that weather. Paul was out on the roads that day putting in his miles; and whether he did it to keep the streak alive or not, he is just a crazy as I am about running in inclement weather.

It brings to mind one day we were trying to run an 18-mile training run out Lime Kiln Road in December, and the temperature was close to freezing; it was raining and we were running into a headwind heading up a hill. After about 15 miles, I thought this was about the most unnecessary run to try and finish, as I was wet, cold and downright miserable. Thankfully, Paul agreed with me, and we turned around and headed back home.

I am not sure when Paul will end his streak, but he said that he is thinking about it; and one of these days he will take a day off and rest before starting another streak. He had mentioned that he wanted to hit 500 days running in a row after he had reached the one-year mark of 365 days. He has reached that and then some. It deserves some recognition, as it is a very monumental accomplishment for a runner.