Ann Forshee Crane and Fred Fry
Most adults go through life hoping to get married, have a couple kids, find a good job and buy a house. When they've realized these goals, the focus turns to launching the kids, trading the house for a condo, and retiring from the good job. And it's a wrap. That's life.

As runners, we add to this plan. We've enriched our lives doing something that most adults don't do; we've thrown in a physical goal - train for and complete a race.

For many of us the goal is to finish upright. Others have time goals. Still others focus their lives on not just a time, but race. Fred Fry is in the latter group.

In February, the Charlotte native ran the Hops Marathon by the Bay in Tampa, Fla. Fred's goal wasn't just to finish, nor run a PR. The 57-year- old's goal was to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

The Boston bug has been a nine-year obsession for Fred. He first got bitten while attending a Beantown conference in 1996.

"Two running-related things happened at that conference," he remembered. "First, my old belt didn't fit. I was too fat. I had to buy a new belt at Filene's Basement.

"Second, my wife, Beth, took my picture as I pretended to finish the Boston Marathon. I was actually running the wrong direction.

"I decided then that I wanted to run Boston. I didn't waste any time getting going. My first marathon was Columbus in November 1996, where I ran 5:13. Both our kids were flabbergasted that a short, fat man made it the whole way."

Fred has run 11 marathons since then. He ran three in 2002, with a best of 4:35:28 in Chicago. He had to cut almost an hour to make the age 50-54 Boston-qualifying standard of 3:40:59.

Interim goals became important, but for Fred it always came back to Boston. Each fall he made hotel reservations for Patriot's weekend, when the marathon is run. And each spring, he cancelled them.

Fred lost 22 pounds. The leaner, meaner Fred ran a 4:00:47 in the 2003 Detroit Marathon. He was coming along. He was zeroing in on Boston.

He joined the 55-59 age group, easing his Boston cutoff to 3:45:59. Five more precious minutes. But he had a persistent IT-band injury in 2004 and couldn't get in consistent mileage. No marathons that year.

But Fred kept his eyes on the Boston prize.

He improved his training. For Detroit in 2003 he had run two 20-milers. Prior to Tampa he did four, with the last being 24 miles.

Fred added speed work. He pulled out all the stops. He had a great race plan, with a moderate slowdown built in for the last six miles, which would be paced by his son, Jeff. He was Ready, with a capital R. He knew he could do it.

If Fred's story were a made-for-TV movie, he would have crawled across the finish line to the "Rocky" theme, and the camera would have panned up to a clock showing he had qualified with two seconds to spare.

But hey, this is real life and Fred's just a regular guy. He anonymously crossed the finish line in Tampa in 3:47:26, missing the Boston cutoff by one minute, 26 seconds.

Fred cancelled his hotel reservation this spring. Again.

Fred has a wife, two kids, a house, a job AND a dream. He's not Rocky Balboa or Superman, but he is a hero for the masses. His nine-year quest for that elusive Boston qualifier is inspiring because each of us can identify with his struggle.

Each runner has his or her own battle, which adds to their "life plan." Each of us has a story. Some are too modest to tell it, while others have yet to find it. But it is there.

Your "Boston" might be simply sticking with your training calendar. It might be reaching the finish line of your first race, or bettering your time from last year. Or it might actually be qualifying for THE Boston Marathon.

Fred Fry is going to qualify for Boston. He'll be toeing the starting line of his next marathon with his cutoff time etched in mind.

Come fall, Fred had better get out that credit card and make those reservations, because next year he's gonna need them.

Ann Forshee-Crane, a freelance writer who has run Boston three times, is the distance coach for Team Playmakers, a walking and running training program based in Okemos. MR