During a Thanksgiving meal in 2010, CNN correspondent Tom Foreman was surprised when his then 18-year-old daughter, Ronnie, asked him to run a marathon with her that spring. "It really daunted me. I was 51 and I thought that my marathon days were behind me. I wasn't sure I could do it with my schedule and lack of fitness at the time—I was sitting like a manatee on the sofa!"
Even though he hadn't run in more than 20 years, he took up the challenge. He and his daughter researched a training regimen on the Internet and began training in earnest the next day. "We had a few basic principles, like you must run exactly what the schedule says, because we knew we needed that discipline. She went back to college where she was studying aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, an incredibly tough field of study. And I'm juggling a job that can be ridiculously demanding on time. But we stuck to the schedule and texted or spoke almost every day about our progress."
Come marathon day that spring, they beat Ronnie's self-chosen goal of five hours, coming in together at 4:45:01. Says Foreman, "Crossing the finish line was the best finish to any race ever because she was with me, and I could see the pride in her face despite her exhaustion."
The experience got him so hooked on running that over the course of the following year, he ran four half-marathons, three marathons, and one 55-mile race. Writing about his experience in My Year of Running Dangerously (Blue Rider Press, Oct.) grew out of what he learned about himself during the training and race experience. "This was a reawakening process. As I went through it, I thought, ‘This is a really nice story.' I wrote this for the ‘middle of the packers,' for all of us out there who struggle to make ourselves go out the door on days when it's too cold or miserable, whether it's running, bicycling, or anything we ought to do because we know it's healthy. It's easy, as you get older, to get buried under work and concerns about our families and responsibilities, and make all of life revolve them. I found through this process of getting back to running that there's much more to life."
And he's still at it. In fact, coinciding with his pub date, Foreman is running five marathons in Maryland and New York City the week before he comes north to participate in the 2015 New York City Marathon. But you can easily catch up with him today at 4 p.m. at the Penguin booth (3119), where he will be signing galleys.
This article appeared in the May 27, 2015 edition of PW BEA Show Daily.
