April 16, 2012 - One Red Grape

Kenneth Williams

You could see it coming: An early spring heat wave, making its way from the Great Plains eastward across the central United States. The unseasonable weather spared neither north nor south as it baked its way across the country. With only a week to go before the start of the 116th Boston Marathon, BAA warnings began arriving for registered runners. Faced with an ominous forecast, race officials warned: “Only the fittest runners should attempt the marathon,” causing me to introspect, at age 70 and just weeks removed from Melanoma surgery, how I could possibly be in that ‘fittest’ group. However, the chance to lengthen my streak of consecutive Boston Marathon finishes to ten overrode any conservative decision to defer or postpone. So, at 10:40 a.m. on Patriots Day, when the gun went off in Hopkinton for my starting wave, once again, I struck out on foot for Boston.

2013 - Never Got To Make The Last Two Turns

Kenneth Williams

"Right on Hereford, left on Boylston" – that’s what was written on the T-shirt Kenneth Williams decided to wear to the Boston Marathon. Those are the last two turns of the race, and Williams was just about to make that right turn on Hereford when the bomb went off on Boylston.

"I saw smoke and thought to myself, ‘what is that?’ " Williams said. "One moment, I was just trying to survive up to the 26th mile, and I was only thinking about oxygen. Then, a moment later, we were stopped."

That was the end of the race for the Corinth, Mississippi, native who traveled to Boston with 17 or so members of the marathon running group he leads.

April 16, 2007 – “This trip was all about the weather and it plagued us the entire time.”

Kenneth Williams

It took me a dozen years to get to Boston the first time. Then it took another 12 years to get back for my second. I ran my first marathon in Chicago in 1978. After that, I continued running marathons, but I limited them to one per year. I would run, cut back to maintenance mileage for several months, then build up mileage and run again. With each marathon, I always tried to improve my time enough to attain the dream of all marathoners: Boston Qualification. But the goal was elusive…

Five years passed, then five more, and I was still trying. Along the way, I filled up an impressive dance card of marathons: Toronto, Marine Corps, New York City, Montreal, Portland, Dallas, San Francisco, Baltimore, Richmond. However, none yielded a BQ time.

1991 - "One and Done, I Thought!!!"

Kenneth Williams

I began running in 1977, just after returning from a trip where I met a guy who had "run a marathon." That sounded like a neat thing to do, so I decided I’d like to try it.

I had no running experience, other than trying to prepare for high school football, a sport I participated in only until the coach first handed out uniforms. Needless to say, this disappointing event marked a lackluster end to my short football journey.

The morning after I returned from the trip, November 2nd, 1977, I laced on my Converse Tennis Shoes and went to the Corinth High School football field and onto the cinder track. I ran a half mile. I rather enjoyed it, and ran well (little did I know the unkempt oval around CHS field was far less than a quarter mile!).

I continued and progressed with distance, endurance and speed. I trained all through the winter and towards spring, felt I was about ready to pick a marathon. Early summer I chose a "Big City" marathon, with all the hype, Chicago. The race was in its second year and was HUGE - 9,000 runners, perhaps the largest marathon at that time. Mid-September, my buddy, Terry, and I ran the Chicago Marathon.