You either know me well or you don’t. If you do, I hope it will come as no surprise that I have joined the Cystic Fibrosis Team for the Falmouth Road Race on August 21^st with the goal of raising several thousand dollars for research.

Why Cystic Fibrosis you ask? I only have three reasons.

1.     Noble Cause: When something happens to a child they must deal with the rest of their life, it is not a good thing. Research can not only lead to a cure, but to a prevention or mitigation. Supporting this organization is similar to the 30+ years of effort supporting another non-profit organization engaged in noble work.

2.      Results: The research dollars generated by volunteers for the organization….worked! That’s right. Huge advances in treatment have been achieved as a result of the type of grass roots efforts this event represents. Life expectancy of CF patients continues to grow.

3.      Inspiration: Over the years some people have credited me with inspiring them, and I have been inspired by many people. But there is a Dad who volunteers for Cystic Fibrosis whose passion, dedication and focus on the mission of finding a cure is unparalleled and unparalleled excellence always inspires.

There are two ways to help reach the goal I’ve set. First you can head over to the fundraising page with a link here and make a donation. Thanks in advance.

If you want a reward for your donation as an extra incentive, I have it for you.

That’s three stories of the most dangerous and frightening experience of my life: getting out on the dance floor in front of real people doing a real dance routine to the song ‘Mack the Knife.’

Everyone who clicks here will receive an invitation to the public showing of this incredible video on a date in August TBD.

Life would be a little boring if we achieved 100% of our goals, wouldn’t it? Oh sure, it would be fantastic, but a little boring.

What that means, I think, is that failure is important to a non-boring life. It is the doubt about success that can drive us to achieve.

I’m sure you have set a goal but realized almost immediately that you were going to fall short and fail.

When that happens, we intuitively know we have limited choices.

I was faced with those three choices (again) on the last Sunday in June in downtown Boston at the Boston Athletic Association 10K Road Race. (6.2 Miles for the metrically challenged).

When my day started out, I was concerned with the rising temperatures, approaching 80 degrees, and the rising humidity, approaching 80 percent. It might hit 90 degrees before the race was over.

I had planned ahead, but not well enough. I'm sure that's happened to you. I left a cooling cloth in the car, and a water bottle that I had planned to spray my face with if I got hot, so my preparation did not earn an A.

But I had known in advance that the day was not going to be a personal best achievement day because of the weather, and I had planned to run a slower race and stay safe. At my age, the thin line between bravery and stupidity, that I have commented on before, is a dangerous line. Too much heat in my body would be stupid and could impact my ability to fight another day.

So, while I was waiting for the event to start, I got philosophical and asked myself why run a race that I cannot win (and never could) and cannot set a personal best?  As I walked around and stood in line for one of the 250 porta-johns, I wasn’t sure what my actual goal was going to be for the day.

I remembered when I first started running, my goal was modest: not to finish last. Since then, I have a wall full of finisher medals that are reminders that I’ve done pretty well at times. But I still couldn’t figure out why I was running.

I only had to wonder for about a mile after the event began.  At that point, it was so hot that I had to stop and walk. I know when I’m hot and I know when to stop. And when I’m very hot, I stop.

I had five more miles to run, and I was already wiped out. I was not going to hit a personal best and I was also not going to run 6.2 miles. No, instead I was going to drag my ass through the streets of Boston with prodigious levels of sweat and would be walking more miles than I was going to run.

Choices.  I wasn’t going to call off the event: I couldn’t send 6,000 people home until another cooler day. I couldn’t stop, turn around and go home and keep my reputation intact, I had to keep going, so I did, and I had to develop a goal for this disaster on the fly.

I realized that I was in Boston. On a sunny June morning. With 6,000 others. When I looked around, I felt a little better because there were so many people walking, instead of running. (Misery loves company, no matter what you’ve been told).

So, I set a very unusual goal: to enjoy myself any way I could. Strange goal, I agree, but I was desperate. I realized that one of the ways we enjoy ourselves is through memories, and I drifted into the past as I passed through the present.

As I walked behind Kenmore Square and the famous Citgo sign I saw the secret parking space that I used to use for Red Sox games, thanks to a BU professor who moved his car out of his space when I needed it. 

I also saw the spot close by where my battery died years ago, and Triple A came to help me in less than 15 minutes. (Most AAA experiences are not good memories; this was an exception). A couple of good memories to fuel my new goal, so I jogged a little bit. Very little. I was hot, so I walked again.

Less than a mile later I was in front of the Boston University’s classic buildings and thought of one of its MBA graduates, my dad. I jogged 100 yards in his memory. In a little while, I passed in front of the Paradise Rock Club where my youngest brother, leader of the band Gang Green, used to play and where I attended a fundraiser for him after his stroke.

At the turnaround point, I could see everyone behind me, so I knew I wouldn’t finish last, and jogged a little bit to make sure. We were outside Nickerson Field and I thought of the night when I was ten years old and I attended the very first Boston Patriots game.

Good memories. I then remembered that I played there once on the Umass Soccer Team and watched one of my brothers play there for Braintree High.

When I went by the studios of WBUR, a public radio station, I remembered when I once did an interview there for the non-profit I managed. Boy, this stretch of Commonwealth Avenue had a wealth of memories.

And then I thought about the time I met my version of ‘Mr. Bojangles’ in the same neighborhood. An 80-year-old guy chewing on a cigar stub who told me the story of how he and his wife were vaudeville performers until she passed away, and he jumped up and clicked his heels in the restaurant to prove it. I went next door and bought him a new cigar.

As we came back through Kenmore Square, I thought about watching my first Boston Marathon after a Red Sox game with Joseph Cummings, my mom’s uncle, and son’s namesake, more than 60 years ago. I decided that I should run over the same ground. Very cool, although I was not.

As I passed under Mass Ave, I looked down and saw the three blue stripes on the road and was reminded that the Boston Marathon runners passed over this asphalt a few weeks ago. Most of those runners were going much faster than me.

That's when it hit me. I realized that running over those blue lines was a privilege. I knew the reason that I was running. It was so simple, but the microprocessor between my ears had sped right by the answer.

As I headed down the home stretch on Cambridge Street and could see the finish line the orange barricades on both sides of the road reinforced my conclusion. I had modified my goal to enjoy myself through memories, but that was secondary to my purpose.

I was INSIDE the orange barriers. I wasn't a spectator: I was a man in the arena.

I wasn’t running to win the event. I wasn’t running to set a personal best, although that would be a bonus. 

I was running because I wanted to be that man Theodore Roosevelt referred to in this famous quote.

So, I failed to reach my goal on the last Sunday in June, but at least I dared greatly, salvaged the day with a stroll down memory lane, and remembered why I run. I hope all my failures turn out as well.

I’ll be back, I'm not leaving the arena any time soon.

Sign Up for the Wednesday Weblog