So here I was 20 years removed from my only marathon participation in 1983 in Ottawa looking towards my first half-marathon in Ottawa this past May, followed by the Toronto Marathon in October.

Well, I outsmarted myself in the half-marathon. I ran a respectable 1:46:53, but I completely killed myself in the first three miles. I was caught up in the adrenaline rush of the start and my pace was probably close to a 7-minute mile. Suffice to say that I was dragging my sorry butt the last three miles.

Anyhow, with that experience behind me, I set my sights on the Toronto Marathon some five months later.

I coaxed my brother Paul, six years my senior, to run with me in October. With two marathons under his belt from 20 years ago, he had also just completed a half-marathon in Burlington. He was quite enthused with his training at the beginning, but as the marathon drew near he was getting worried that he wouldn’t be ready or able to keep up with me.

As for me, well I was Mr. high-tech with my Polar S410 watch and PC Coach/Jeff Galloway software training plan. I was sure I was ready to complete the marathon in my goal of 3:45.

Fast forward to race day on October 19 … Paul and I get up around 6 a.m. We synchronise our watches and make our way to the school buses that will take us on our trek to the starting line.

It was pretty cold in Toronto at 7 a.m., around 5 degrees Celsius, but we were able to wait indoors right next to the start line. So in the next two hours, we went through our many trips to the overcrowded washrooms, stretched about three times, walk off some nervous energy … and obviously tried to go to the washroom again just 10 minutes before the 9 a.m. start.

I won’t bore you with all the details of three hours, 58 minutes and 49 seconds of running, but I will say it was great that we ran together.

We both kept our pace reasonable at the beginning, making sure we didn’t start too fast. I increased our speed a little just after the halfway mark when I noticed we were behind schedule, and Paul made the critical burst of speed in those last eight to 10 minutes when it really looked like we wouldn’t even break the four-hour mark. I'm sure we would have missed it by seconds if he hadn't pushed me.

The real story, though, is everything that happened in between. We had fun chatting along the way. We enjoyed the many people cheering on the runners, and Paul even befriended a couple cheering their daughter with a “Go Stacy Go” sign. Paul insisted on saying “Thanks Dad” when we ran by them three times.

It was also encouraging, and gave us energy, to see our own fans with signs for us too. My mom, sister and her husband and our oldest brother made signs for us and gave us strength. Their stories of fighting their way through the Toronto traffic and subways seemed to be a marathon in itself.

And finally that last half-mile was special. As we were increasing our pace to reach the “winner’s” line under four hours, we saw our immediate families there for us … Paul’s wife Debbie and their kids Melissa and Adam and friend Julie were there, as were my wife Dianna and son Curtis.