Why Boston?

For those of you wondering "Why on earth is Fritz running the Boston Marathon?" here is the answer:

Way, way back when I was in 7th Grade at Papillion Junior High, we were having guidance counselor interviews. These are the ones where the guidance counsellor asks some poor 7th Grade kid (who has just left the comfortable womb of the elementary school and is now suffering the trauma if being in Junior High) "What do you want to do with your life?". (For the sisters, my counselor at the time was Mr. Davis, they will get a chuckle because he was a hippie throwback which was pretty rare in Papillion, NE, after the interview, I realized, that man was kind of weird). Believe it or not, I had no really good idea at that point so I made a few things up:

Question 1: "What college do you want to go to?" Texas A&M of course, what other colleges are there? Just two short years earlier, the G family had moved from Texas and I kind of liked it, so I was still in the denial phase. Texas A&M had a very good football team in the 70s, so that was my answer. In the years after that, I slowly became a Nebraska fan and ended up going to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Strike one.

Question 2: "What do you want to major in?" Agriculture, duh. Texas A&M is an AGRICULTURE and Military college. Geez, these guidance counselors don't know a darned thing. I majored in Business and focused on Economics. Strike two.

Question 3: "What will you do after college?" Umm, join the Army. Agriculture and MILITARY, hello? (I got one right)

Question 4: "Is there anything else that you want to do?" Run the Boston Marathon. This was spring time and I had just read an article about the Boston Marathon and thought it was pretty cool. I had no idea what a marathon was. (batting .500)

About 5 minutes after the session with Mr. Davis, I flushed all of that out of my brain.

Fast forward to 1999, I had to stop playing rugby, 9 out of 10 doctors agreed that is was bad for my health, and had no idea what to do to keep myself busy, so I started running a little more. I talked to a bunch of folks at school (Command and General Staff College, FT Leavenworth) that were running the Army Ten Miler, and I ran that with them, it was pretty cool and I was hooked on racing. I signed up for the Disney Marathon, turned a pretty good time and it kind of hit me, I had told my 7th Grade guidance counsellor that I was going to run the Boston Marathon, I HAVE to do that. I got online and went to sign up for it and was told by the cold hearted internet, you have to QUALIFY (At the time, the Disney Marathon was not a Boston Qualifier, and my time was 12 minutes too slow for my age) for the Boston Marathon. My 7th Grade goal was crushed.

I moved back to FT Bragg, rejoined 3d SFG and got too busy to even think about running 26.2 miles. After I left 3d SFG, I had a little more time for proper training and I picked back up with the goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. I ended up qualifying for the marathon on my first shot (at the Gulf Coast Marathon in St. Petersburg, FL - - flat, fast, and a 20 mile an hour tailwind), and the rest is history.

This will be my second Boston Marathon, I will enjoy it as much as the first.