In each monthly issue, Inside Texas Running will publish one chapter from the new book "First Marathons." This month's story begins in the May 2002 issue of ITR.

To order your copy of "First Marathons: Personal Encounters witht he 26.2-Mile Monster," send $23 per copy (plus $2.95 per order for shipping/handling) to Inside Texas Running, P.O. Box 19909, Houston, TX 77224. Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery.

Mercifully, the course after Heartbreak was -- like my mood -- all downhill. Somehow as it declined into Cleveland Circle I began to plod again and entered the city of Boston semi-comatose, but determined to reach the finish at Exeter Street. The last mile seemed endless. The one indelible memory: In Kenmore Square stood the baseball immortal Ted Williams (the race was run in between the games of a Red Sox double header). He was clapping with admiration for all who passed. A friend of mine actually heard him say, "Now those guys are real athletes."

Now, I had known that if I ever succeeded in achieving this feat no one would believe me, so I had a classmate, one Larry Ambush, wait at the finish line with his camera to record my achievement for posterity. At long last, I stumbled across the line on two wooden legs and was unable to walk for a week.

This caused a bit of a problem back in school as I was playing King Creon in the Greek club's production of Oedipus at Colonus and I was supposed to storm angrily on stage, leading my soldiers and assert my authority. But I was rigid and could scarcely move my legs to shuffle. And so the director had to change the staging and have my troops carry me in. I am sure many of the scholars present that day thought it was a new artistic interpretation.

I ran my first Boston in 3:40, which made me seventy-ninth. (Those were the days!). I had originally thought that if I actually finished the entire marathon it would be the peak of my "career," and I could retire a winner. After all, had I not achieved something athletic? And I'd have the photo to prove it.

Except that Larry Ambush's picture did not come out! It showed nothing but an unrecognizable blur. Now I would have to do it again and find a better photographer.

By the next year I was hooked. I now set myself a genuinely impressive target: to break three hours for the distance. Which I finally did in 1960.

In all, I ran twenty consecutive Bostons and became such a regular that Will Clooney, the race director, reserved the number 99 for me every year. My best performance was almost a full hour faster than the first. Most of the others hovered on either side of the three-hour mark -- the most frustrating: 3:00:19!

In the twentieth year I had a bout of pneumonia a month prior to the race and was strictly forbidden by my own doctor to run. I disobeyed. I felt by then that my feet knew every step of the way and would do it for me. And they did.

The serious training I did in those years changed my life forevermore. It is one thing to be scrawny, but it is another to be scrawny and fit. The strength I acquired through long, hard running energized my entire life, mentally as well as physically.

I would often come back from a run with the idea for a plot of a story or the words of a song, which would come to me as if the mind had been refreshed with more oxygen and inspiration lubricated by the perspiration from my efforts.

No day -- no matter how stressful -- ever ended on a sour note. A ten-mile run beats Prozac anytime.

During my less-than-brilliant career, I ran another twenty marathons in places as distant as Belgium and England. And wherever I went the feeling of mutual support and camaraderie made instant friendships.

I also picked up some tips along the way, one of which is worth passing on. Every marathon runner has a favorite song to which he sings in his head to keep the cadence of his stride. My most effective tune was "Hello Dolly," which underscored literally thousands of miles. Try it -- it'll take you a long way. That is all the wisdom I have to impart on this matter.

Oh yes, for the record, I do deserve a tiny footnote in the history books -- for having been Frank Shorter's teacher at Yale. I would like to take this opportunity to report a hitherto unknown incident.

One afternoon I was chugging around the college track, timing myself for a ten-miler. Frank watched me reel off lap after lap and could not keep from remarking to his teammates, loud enough for me to hear, "A guy would have to be crazy to run a marathon."

A few years later, I reminded him of this when he won the gold medal at the Olympics in 1972 and I was interviewing him for ABC- TV.

Frank smiled. It didn't seem crazy then.

Alas, an unexpected injury -- unrelated to running -- spoiled my intention to keep running until I was at least a hundred.

I miss it.

Some people dream of becoming president, winning the Nobel Prize, or flying to the moon. My own fantasy is to be running once again in my short pants through the streets of Boston being cheered by that knowing, loving crowd.

So listen, the next time you are due for a workout and it is raining, windy, and freezing, and you are thinking of putting it off, count yourself lucky.

Get out there and enjoy the best feeling life can give.