![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHqN5sLrf5a1rpiM4uZPd7kMyb7v0PKzPnVtQf5aBLQ5mzOF4w_W0HtOJHW9tACbYiLpQLEmIJLFgv2-r2QoEOJ6G8KNwSPFW_yvFJ3MacQhnu0H-CsfGOILm0aQJkofcxudg7cRTbyy0/s400/Marc+Bloom+kneeling.png)
When did you start running and why? It was spring 1972. I hadn’t run since HS grad in ’64 and had gained weight. I didn’t feel “right.” I’d been married three years at that point. My wife (Andrea) and I lived in Brooklyn and would go to a nearby HS track to play paddleball. I started jogging a few laps, one thing led to another, and I started doing some mileage on the roads, and by fall ’72 was running 40 to 50 miles a week and had lost my extra weight, about 20 lbs. My first race was a 3M on a frigid Thanksgiving morning, on Staten Island.
Peak running? When I was doing the NYC Marathon almost