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Ed Harrod discovered marathon running at age 55, and a decade later, he's far from slowing down.
A real estate broker with Coldwell Banker Tomlinson, Harrod soon will start training for the Boston Marathon. Harrod, who turns 65 in December, qualified for the prestigious marathon after finishing the Portland Marathon in October within four hours, 15 minutes.
He said he made it with 39 seconds to spare, allowing him to compete in the 65-69 age group division in the Boston Marathon in April.
On average, about 200 men qualify in the 65-69 age group for the 26-mile race, which is capped at 25,000 entries, said Harrod, who failed to make the cut in three earlier tries.
Boston will be his 11th marathon since he completed his first in 1998 in Honolulu.
It's about never losing sight of the goal you set, Harrod said.
He never gave up running, except for a brief time when he was recuperating from cancer surgery, he said. Running turned out to be therapeutic as he battled prostate cancer, he said.
The challenge of stretching his body, physically and mentally, keeps Harrod focused.
"I want to stay active and continue doing things I love to do. Age will bring some limitations. I'm trying to minimize those limitations," said Harrod, who is getting married in January to Theresa Flores.
Harrod discovered running after he gave up playing recreational basketball. He said he used to walk to stay fit and once happened to run about a half-mile to avoid being late. It was an embarrassing struggle and he decided to do something about it.
He set up a running schedule after consulting friend and Realtor Laura Harris-Hodges, who ran about four to five miles a day, he said.
Soon he decided to run a marathon.
"I knew nothing about how to train. I simply went out to run, gradually increasing the distance every week," he said.
Minor pain and aches didn't slow down Harrod's resolve to compete at the Honolulu Marathon, he said.
"The goal was simply to finish the race no matter how long it took," he said.
Now, he runs about 10 to 12 road races each year. "I feel guilty if I didn't get up and run in the morning," he said.
His regimen also inspired his fiance to be a runner, he said. "I didn't tell her, 'You have to run,' when we began dating five years ago," Harrod said, smiling.
One of Harrod's granddaughters, who's 16, also likes to run, he said. Recently, Harrod and his granddaughter won their divisions at the Columbia Classic two-mile race, which helped raise money for Habitat for Humanity.
Flores was second in the 45-49 age group at the same race, he added.
Harrod's best performance was at the 2002 Avenue of the Giants Marathon in California, when he finished in less than four hours.
And when he starts training next month for the Boston Marathon, his goal is simple: "To be in as good a shape as a 65-year-old man can be in," he said.
