The city of Boston has come to mean so much to me over the past few years. It is the home of RunKeeper and therefore, served as the jumping off point for my Boston to NYC running adventure. Starting the adventure from the offices of RunKeeper and having the opportunity to run with the team that enabled my running achievements was a great moment.

The first day running served as my introduction to the Boston marathon course. Running from the offices we quickly headed to the official finish line for an obligatory photo, as starting in the city meant the course would be run in reverse! I can safely say the course is far easier in reverse, after all Heartbreak hill becomes a breeze!

But it wasn’t until I ran the NYC marathon that the idea of running the Boston marathon entered my mind. It was pointed out by Andrea of Team with a VIsion, that after running from Boston to NYC and then completing the NYC marathon, I was only 13 minutes shy of qualifying for the Boston marathon.

Coming that close to qualifying made me determined to run a little faster and get to Boston. Fortunately, there was one race left to qualify and it happened to be on the final day of qualifications. Lucky me! Except I hadn’t run in 2 months after injuring myself running from Boston to NYC. So in what I still consider the most difficult race of my life I set off to qualify for the Boston marathon. With a large amount of arguing with my guide runner and throwing our toys out of the pram, we managed to pull it together and shave 15 minutes off our time, putting me 2 minutes within the qualifying zone.

So in 2015 I headed out to run my first ever Boston marathon with Team with a Vision, it was a wonderful race, with incredible crowd support that pulls you along, and yes this is when I discovered Heartbreak Hill is easier in reverse!

I also managed to complete the race in a qualifying time for the following 2016 race. So this year once again I will be heading out to Boston to run the streets and hopefully, pick up a PB for the marathon.

For the first time I will also be running with a new guide runner, while Neil Bacon is heading out to Boston, he is guiding for a fellow blind competitor. I have the wonderful pleasure of running along side Heather Armstrong of dooce and Nicole of pumps and iron . I have a feeling they may run circles around me. I am built for cookie distance, I can grind it out but I am not fast, you can’t have cookie breaks when you run fast!

We are all running together to raise money for Team with a Vision, a fantastic cause that helps out the visually impaired within MA. So if you’d like to help me raise money for the Massachusetts Association for the blind and Visually impaired, head on over to my fund raising page at crowd rise and donate!