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DARIEN, Conn. Nearly 30 years ago, Peter Pfister was a couch potato until his wife, Ann, lured him into a run. The 52-year-old Darien man hasnt stopped and will run the Boston Marathon for the sixth consecutive year April 16.
I was wheezing, coughing, it wasnt that much fun in the beginning, said Pfister, who lived in New York at the time. Then you begin to feel muscles that youve never felt before. It gets so addictive. Now its at the point that if I dont do it, I feel grumpy all day.
The Boston race will be the 16th marathon overall and eighth Boston for Pfister, whose other races in the 26.2-mile distance have come mostly in New York and Chicago. Remarkably, Pfister gets better with age. His best time is the 3:20:05 he clocked last year in Boston, a race in which many runners set personal marks.
He jumped into marathons when his brother-in-law, a Boston-area physician, asked him to run for charity in the Boston Marathon. I had a negative split, Pfister said, a term runners use to describe running the second half of the race faster than the first half. It is especially rare in Boston. It was my first race at the distance, and we went out pretty slowly. But I finished strong and have been hooked ever since.
Pfister doesnt need to get to Boston through the charity door these days. Hes one of the better runners in the area within his age group, which is one of the most competitive. Pfisters time last year in Boston placed him 301st in his age group and 5,038th overall in a field of nearly 24,000 finishers.
Its hard not to get excited about running Boston, Pfister said. The heritage of the marathon, the whole experience is great. Its my favorite race.
He tries to balance his running with work and family, which includes five children. Thats why he limits his marathons to just two a year and races sparingly during the summer. There are a lot of tradeoffs, Pfister said. I want to work at running hard enough but not too hard.
Pfister may have already qualified for the 2013 Boston Marathon, based on his time of 3:27:06 in the New York City Marathon last year. That could afford him the luxury of taking a more relaxed attitude, but Pfister enjoys the competition even if his family doesnt share the bug.
Its kind of that way, unfortunately, Pfister said. At the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot last year I was trying to sneak up toward the front of the crowds to get a faster start with my wife and kids in tow. They would have none of it, preferring a low-stress family fun run. I guess Im gratified that I still have the competitive instinct. Its something that running really brought out.
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