For starters, the Fresno marathon is a November race, and I would need to train during the fall, the time of year I cover the Fresno State football team, the time of year when I spend my days in airports and night in hotels, eating at restaurants on the company credit card. Not a good time to be training for a marathon. Or even a walk to the mailbox. To counter this problem, however, I didn't train. At all.

Since June 1, I had only run about three times, total, none longer than six miles. At some point, I convinced myself I wasn't going to actually do the marathon anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. Then when October came around, I convinced myself it was such a good idea that I couldn't not do it. I had written columns asking for this marathon, encouraging someone or some company to come forward and make it happen. How could I not support it? How could I not be at the start of something that could become a Fresno tradition? And really, how many writers can get that close to an event? So then I somehow convinced myself that if I ran slowly enough, it wouldn't matter that I didn't train. I mean, I had run six marathons. (That's the problem with me. I know how gullible I am.) None of these marathons were fast, mind you. But take the Chicago Marathon. A former girlfriend and I had run Chicago on what you might call "casual" training. And by that, I mean we went to the movies a lot.

The point is, we survived. It was painful, but not extraordinarily so.

Second problem: How to interview runners while you're actually running? Pen and notebook seemed a little burdensome. OK, digital recorder. And because I had this no-limits blog, why not take a picture of every runner? So that meant running an entire marathon with digital recorder in one hand and camera in the other. It was getting ridiculous quickly. The marathon finally came, and I won't go into all the details yet, but it was awful. Not sure I've ever been in so much pain, and that comes from a person who had an emergency appendectomy on the day he was supposed to have his wisdom teeth out. Yeah, not good.

Next problem: When the marathon was finished and I went to write the column for the next day's paper, it became evident I didn't have nearly enough space in the paper. I was out of room by mile 12. I begged for more space, then edited out quite a few of the miles and made it work. Not what I had originally intended but here's the version that ran in the Sunday Fresno Bee . And here is the extended, revised, well-worth-the-wait, special-edition, blog version of the marathon column, with all miles included and photographs ...

Pre-race: Jeffrey Nennig, 57, Fresno

I've always said that the beginning of a marathon is one of the coolest feelings in the world. I've never been in the delivery room for the birth of a child, but I have to assume it's 10 times better than that. Seriously, though, no matter what what size the marathon, you just get that feeling that you are part of something special, something bigger than your city or your neighborhood or your job or your group of friends. You are part of a movement, thousands of people running for causes and sick relatives and against their own mortality. It really is humbling.

So I was standing there thinking about all this, and forgot to take a picture of the start of the race. Not that Fresno's start was that visually impressive. It's the first year. It's not like Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minn., where you start on a trail next to Lake Superior. It can't compare to San Francisco's Bay or standing amongst the Chicago skyscrapers with 39,999 other runners. But the feeling was still there. It always is.

Nennig was standing near the back of the start, and he really did look a little nervous, first-day-of-school excited. How could he not be? This was his first marathon. He had an American flag on his shirt. You know you're doing something important when you feel good wearing an American flag on your chest.

It's his own chest that Nennig had been worried about. He had a stent put in his heart just 10 months earlier, and decided it was time to get serious about exercise. It doesn't get a lot more serious than a marathon.

"I feel good," Nennig said. "I trained for five months and I'm ready."

***

Mile 1: Patrick Speir, 44, Fresno

Speir ran his first marathon earlier this year in San Diego, the Rock & Roll Marathon. With a torn meniscus. That's a cool race. That, to me, is grounds for locking someone up against their will. Major league pitchers go on the disabled list with hangnails and blisters, but Speir ran with a TORN MENISCUS. That was June 1. He had knee surgery on June 20. Then started running again Aug. 6. Insanity.

"Knee feels great," he said.

Speir is a teacher at Del Mar Elementary, where he's also athletic director, and coaches pretty much every sport they have, football, basketball, track, billiards, fencing, ultimate fighting and bomb disarming. (OK, I'm kidding. Del Mar Elementary doesn't have billiards.) Speir's wife, Stacy, was also in the Fresno marathon, walking it while three months pregnant. After the marathon, I saw Speir and he finished in 4 hours, 40 minutes, or something like that, far better than his San Diego time. Two good knees probably helped.

***

Mile 2: Heather Holst, 34, Gilbert, Ariz.

This was Holst's second marathon in two weeks. She ran Cape Cod on Oct. 26, and somehow she planned to run her personal best in Fresno. I've never understood the people who can run more than one marathon in a short period of time. The body shouldn't have been able to do that.

"I'm gonna try," she said.

***

Mile 3: Randy McDaniel, 45, Fresno

Said McDaniel: "I'm not a runner but I like challenges. Physical challenges. Mental challenges. This is why I do it." He's the general manager for automotive company, and at mile 3, felt great. "Just right on pace," he said.

***

Mile 4: Jeff Weiss, 32, Los Angeles

I do not want to make generalizations about the friendliness of southern Californians, but Weiss was not overly excited about being interviewed during the marathon. Or maybe he was skeptical that I was actually a newspaper reporter. "This is my first marathon. I just started training five months ago," he said. That was either his wife, or girlfriend, or friend with him wearing the headphones. Great insight, huh?

How was he feeling? "Hoping that I'm not going to fast," he said.

***

Mile 5: Chenecua Dixon, 31, Fresno

Dixon was running her first marathon along with three of her friends, all dressed in the same outfits. "I'm feeling really good," she said. "The last leg of the marathon. That's the hardest one."

And then when I asked her to tell me something interesting about herself, she went to some classic wife humor: "I'm a mother of three; four if you count my husband!" That one, apparently, never goes out of style.

***

Mile 6: Jaclyn Flores, 23, Austin, Texas

I wonder how many pregnant women run marathons every year. It has to be a lot. "I'm running this and I'm three-and-a-half months pregnant," Flores told me. "I feel good." That's not the crazy part, though. She and her husband scheduled this marathon in the middle of a vacation. He was running, too, though not with her. There's an important distinction to be made here. It is crucial -- no, IMPERATIVE -- to support your loved one while he or she is running a marathon. It's an emotional event. It's painful. It's one of those bucket-list achievements. It's a moment that you should be there for, to cheer from the sidewalk, to hold signs, to ring a cowbell, to love unconditionally, to hug at the end when he or she is covered in sweat and salt and blisters. But you don't need to run together. In fact, it's probably better that you don't. Those miles between 18 and the finish line are harder on a relationship than football or strippers or even cute co-workers.

Anyway, back to Flores. I don't need any excuses to avoid running 26.2 consecutive miles, but either being pregnant or on vacation would certainly be more than enough. I think I'm not alone in saying that running a marathon while pregnant and on vacation should earn you some sort of medal of valor. At least a certificate.

***

Mile 7: Gary Mort, 49, Clovis

Of all the people I interviewed along the run, Mr. Mort wanted our conversation to end the quickest. I asked him to tell me something about himself: "I love the outdoors." I asked him how he felt: "Oh, I'm fine." I asked how many marathons he'd run: "A couple." I asked him his main concern at Mile 7: "No worries."

Good talk.

***

Mile 8: Karen Holland, 50, Visalia

I should probably mention now that I ran with Fresno Bee reporter Denny Boyles. If you've read that book, "A Walk in the Woods," by Bill Bryson, you should know that Denny would be Bryson, the one who was taking the marathon seriously, you know, preparing. He's a mentor for Team in Training, that massive organization that raises money for cancer research. I would be Bryson's college who just sort of showed up. It was a bit awkward asking people to stop running so I could take their picture, so I started running ahead and taking pictures as they came by, which is why you'll see Denny doing his best Where's Waldo in the back of a bunch of the photos.

At Mile 8, we came upon Holland who informed us she was running her first marathon, and also had a black belt in taekwando. We backed away slowly.

"Pretty good," she said of her race to that point. "I'm trying to pace myself. I think I'm gonna make it."

I tried not to cringe when she said that. Mile 8 is no place to be announcing you think you're going to make it. Howard Dean thought he was going to make it. So did Magellan. There are two distinct moments in any amateur runner's marathon. There is the point where either fatigue or pain really start to set in, and you immediately stop worrying about anything besides finishing the race. Not finishing time. Not personal records. Not form. Not the stuff that is inevitably sticking out of your nose or the salt stains on your cheeks. You just want to survive.

And there is also the moment is when you realize you are definitely going to make it. It's just a calming feeling, OK, I'm definitely going to get a medal. I'm not going to run for four hours, then crash and burn and waste months of training. I've run seven marathons now, and that feeling has come at all different times, Mile 17, MIle 19, Mile 21, even as late as MIle 24. I've seen way too many people collapse 50 yards from the finish line. It happens.

So those are two moments, and I cannot emphasize enough that neither of those should occur on Mile 8. We got away from Holland before the lightning struck.

***

Mile 9: Parminder Samran, 40, Madera

In all my hours of running, I've never come across anyone as happy as Samran. Definitely not on Mile 9. She told me, pretty much unprovoked, that she loves life, loves everybody, has no complaints about anything. She also writes poems. "I'm starting a book," she said. "It'll be done in a couple of years."

This is probably unneccessary, but I'll include her quote anyway: "I feel great! Awesome!"

***

Mile 10: Kerry Roberts, 49, Fresno

If Holland was overconfident, then Roberts was leaning the other way. How do you feel? "Questionable," she said.

Roberts is a math teacher and also a musician. She plays guitar in a band called "Group Therapy," and should at least be considering a part-time gig as a stand-up comic.

As we separated, I couldn't help but ask her what hurt? "My ego."

***

Mile 11: Dean Gallego, 26, Clovis

Gallego is a nurse at St. Agnes Medical Center and Fresno was his sixth marathon. "Well," he said, "usually I'm on a 5 mile-per-hour pace so I'm doing ok right now." A lot of people like to just put everything out of their mind when they run, just relax and not think about the bills or the annoying boss. Gallego is not one of those people. He likes to think about running, strategy, the meaning of life. He likes to contemplate.

"Most people who are here are running with headphones and music," he said. "But for me a marathon is an event where it's just me by myself, alone with my thoughts, just thinking and talking to god."

***

Mile 12: Colette Weil, 57, Mill Valley, Calif.

"I'm gonna P.R.," Weil said, "so I can't talk long."

The Personal Record is huge. This would be a good place to talk about that. Everybody wants to set their own personal record. In the regular world, personal record is a noun. On a marathon course, it's the most important verb there is. Regular, hard-working, law-abiding, Bible-reading folks will shove little old ladies into shark-infested lakes to set their PRs. Maybe I'm exaggerating. They'd at least shove them into mineshafts, where they could be rescued later and treated for minor injuries.

My personal record is 3 hours, 54 minutes, 23 seconds. Roughly. OK, I have it tattooed on my forehead, which is going to be an issue if I ever get faster. When you're training for that long, and running that far, you want to lower your time. What's the point of doing insane, physical challenges if you can't brag about PR-ing for the next couple months?

"It's changed my life," Weil said of running. "It gives you a place to perform and keep up with you 30-year-olds." Weil was really moving. Most 30-year-olds I know do not run marathons at that pace. She's not keeping up with 30-year-olds, she's hurting their feelings.

About that time, we approached Woodward Park, where the half-marathoners split off to the left toward their finish line, and the rest of us turned north on Friant Road, not even halfway done yet. "Am I going the right way?" Weil said, and promptly left us in her exhaust fumes.

***

Mile 13: Kenneth Clausell, 36, Fresno

The pain started on Mile 13. I distinctly remember that. Denny had that moment where he realized he just wanted to finish and a definite sadness that he wouldn't be getting his P.R. We had a moment of silence for that. There is really no explanation for why you feel good during one marathon, and with the exact same training, feel awful the next. Sometimes, as athletes are always telling me, it just isn't your day. It wasn't Denny's day. I knew it wasn't going to be my day going in, so I was mostly just concerned with a suddenly throbbing ankle.

Both of us stopped complaining as soon as we met Clausell, who explained that he is legally blind, running his first marathon, and also starting to struggle. "My quads are hurting," he said. "They're burning a little." He only trained 10 weeks, but had a look that said he would finish this race if it took until Easter.

"Whatever I run today is my PR," he said.

That was about the last time Denny or I remember having a good feeling. And that, kids, is foreshadowing.

***

(To be continued ...)