my little brother

So my younger brother finally decided to pursue a hobby he might
enjoy, and of all hobbies he chose marathons. My parents have friends
who have run and continue to run marathons, and I believe this is
part of the reason my brother started running them. I have a hard
enough time driving 26.2 miles especially in and around the DC area,
I couldn't fathom running such a distance. Yet there goes Jonathan,
aka Chouchou. He started maybe a little over a year ago, and it
wasn't always pretty. He couldn't run through his first in Miami,
then he went to the City of Angels where our older brother lives to
run his second. When it was time to put on his brand new running
shoes he realized that he had grabbed one new shoe and one older
shoe, and he ran the whole marathon with mismatching shoes. Not sure
if this is recommended by professionals, and he ended the day with a
rather swollen knee.
Well, he then decided to improve his preparation and also started
running shorted races to improve his speed. He even recently finished
first in his age group in a 5k in Miami again. His goal is to run 3-4
marathons each year, a good opportunity also to travel around the US
and to other countries and sightsee. What else is there to do while
running 26.2 miles.
So Sunday, he ran the flying pig marathon in Cincinnati. His goals
where to run the half in 1:30 and finish the whole affair in 3:10,
and incidentally qualify for the highly sought after Boston marathon,
the only race requiring a qualifying time. He did not feel he was
well prepared to accomplish these goals but philosophically stated
that should he fail, life goes on! He did study psychology in college
if my memory serves me right.
Well, to make a long story short (or maybe that is too late now), he
finished the flying pig marathon in an official time (I think) of
3:10:18, and he is now qualified for the Boston Marathon. He also
claims that the distance was an extra 1/4 mile longer due to a house
fire in the morning race officials decided to race around, and this
means he would have finished a couple minutes earlier.
I sure hope he got me some pig shorts!
And of course a job well done to my little brother!