Have I flipped out?

I have begun researching how to train for a marathon and it dawned on me that it is a lot of work. I knew that it was I just forgot. I ran competitively in high school and college. However that was 30 years ago. In high school I would run 50-60 miles a week. In college I would run 80 miles a week or more. Prior to my freshman year in college we had a summer camp for the fall cross county season. We clocked 105 miles that week. I have decided to follow Hal Higdon's Marathon Training Guide. He breaks down the training into a series of weeks. He has a number of programs depending on your condition and experience. Well my conditioning needs a little work. At this point I am weighing in at 214 pounds and I am 5'-10". Not the ideal running weight. I am planning to get the weight down before I get into any serious running. In high school I was a waif at 135 pounds and not much above that in college. What happened?
I was looking at the Boston Marathon web page and saw that they have a Charity Program that they allow runners to enter to raise funds for there particular charity. There is a charity that interested me it was Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Both my parents died of lung cancer when I was a teenager. They died two years apart. I was 16 when my mom died and 18 when my dad died. They were smokers. However it seemed they aged so prematurely. I have thought perhaps they were exposed to some sort of carcinogenic some time in their lives. I do recall that they met when they both worked in a box factory back in the 40's or 50's. God only knows what they could have been exposed to. In any event their death was life changing experience to say the least. It forced me to ask the question, Why? This lead me on a path to discover the meaning of life. Little did I know that journey had been trekked many times before I stepped on that path. I may approach Dana Faber Cancer Institute to participate in their Boston Marathon running program.
I also looked at Marathons that I could qualify for Boston. I live in Southern Oregon so I concentrated on California and Oregon. There are two that might work California International Marathon and the The Portland Marathon. Both are towards the end of 2010 and give me some time to train. In the initial stages of my research it seems a monumental task. However all things are possible for those who believe.

The Start

I have begun my quest to run the Boston Marathon in 2011. To qualify for Boston you must clock a 3 hour and 30 minute time. That is roughly 8 minute miles for 26 miles. Today I ran one mile. I live on a dirt road and from my drive way to the end of the dirt road is 1/2 mile. The out and the back is one mile. There are no other homes between my home and the end of the road. I am literally running through the wilderness. There is a hill at the beginning of the 1/2 mile and hill at the end off the 1/2 mile. My goal was to see were I am in relation to the 8 minute mile. I clocked a 8:49:15. I was sucking air to say the least. It brought me back to my youth when I ran competitively. The legs and arms like lead and the lungs a blaze with fire. That last quarter mile sprint when the sensation of your body is if you are running in slow motion. However today that was the complete mile. I have a way to go.
Why am I subjecting myself to this torment? Well it is a long story. Hopefully over the next year it will unfold. This is my Everest .