The occasion of the 107th running of the Boston Athletic Association’s Boston Marathon takes me back to a simpler time when, for better or worse, I got the opportunity to participate in road racing’s signature contest for the first and only time.

While it still seems like just yesterday, the historic centennial Boston Marathon was actually way back in 1996, held on a glorious spring day just five days after Mother Nature had dumped 15 inches of snow on Hopkinton, the race’s starting point. That April snowstorm was par for the course for the winter of 1995-’96, as that record-breaking year saw nearly 100 inches of snow fall on the Greater Boston area. The battering that New Englanders took that winter from snowstorm after snowstorm made it even more difficult for even the hardiest of local runners to prepare for the April 15 race.

Because it would be the 100th running of the annual Patriots’ Day race — meaning that every Tom, Dick, and Harry who had ever laced up a pair of Pumas would want to run this particular Boston Marathon — the BAA had implemented in 1995 a lottery system for approximately 5000 runners to be granted official numbers even if they hadn’t qualified under the existing time standards.

Since I, in one of my other roles at the Phoenix, oversaw the production and publication of the annual Official Boston Marathon Program, I had some "connections" within the BAA and might have been able to pull some strings to secure a number. But I chose not to take advantage of that relationship, at least not at that point in time, and instead took my chances on the lottery. Apparently, between 20,000 and 25,000 people entered that random drawing to gain one of the coveted berths, but I was one of the lucky ones, garnering a no-strings-attached official invitation to the premier running of the nation’s oldest race.

I was never passionate about running, and only seemed to get out there and train if I had a particular race to prepare for. I had run in a handful of 10ks and even a few 15ks in Upstate New York before moving to Boston, but my first chance to watch as a spectator the spectacle of the Boston Marathon got me hooked on the idea of running the race — just once, to say I had done it.

Being a relatively slow, steady runner, I knew that I could never generate the speed numbers necessary to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which is still the only marathon in the country that requires participants to achieve certain time standards — run in a previous qualifying marathon — to make the official starting field. If you can’t qualify, your only other chance to participate is to run as part of a charity group raising money for one of the approved causes, or to run unofficially, without a number, as a so-called bandit. Bandits, though, are not only frowned upon by the race organizers and other runners, but they do not get to be part of any of the pre- and post-race activities and do not receive an official number, finishing time, or finisher’s medal. What fun is that?

Getting in via the lottery was a stroke of providence, therefore, not only because of the long odds, but because it was the only time that such a process has ever been implemented for this celebrated race. For someone who wanted to run just one marathon, and have that one marathon be the 100th Boston Marathon, it was undoubtedly a gift from the gods.

I had trained to run Boston as a bandit back in 1987, but six weeks before the race I hurt my knee running a tune-up half-marathon down in Hyannis, and that was that — six months of winter workouts down the drain. As it turned out, missing that one made qualifying for Boston in 1996 all the more gratifying.

The knee gave me no further trouble as I built up the mileage during the winter of 1995, but the brutality of the winter made every training run an adventure. Because of the snow build-up over the course of the winter, few sidewalks were ever plowed, and snow banks on the sides of the road narrowed the shoulders that provided the runner’s only thoroughfare. Training at night, as I nearly always did, made it even more tricky to deal with the icy conditions and the parade of oncoming cars.

My wife was pregnant with our first child during that winter, and when the baby came, in late March, I had achieved a top run of only 14 miles during my training period. Now, with the race just three weeks away, I was sidetracked from running by dealing instead with the usual aspects of new fatherhood. In my last "real" long run in the week before race day, I hit the much-discussed "wall," having lost, after just 10 miles, any kind of will or energy to complete what I had hoped would be a 16-mile outing.

The one thing that I did have going for me in those final months of preparation was the opportunity to train on the actual marathon course, particularly the cruel stretch through Newton that encompasses the three separate inclines, culminating with "Heartbreak Hill." During the latter stages of my training, I would start out in Wellesley and run through Newton and Brookline en route to the finish line in Copley Square. By knowing exactly what to expect terrain-wise during the most critical stage of the race, I felt that I would be better prepared to deal with it when and if I arrived there.

The night before the race, I figured to get a good night’s sleep, but found that after awakening at 3:30 a.m., I was unable to fall back asleep. At 7 a.m. I headed out to Boston Common to get the shuttle bus out to Hopkinton, and from there it was nearly a four-hour wait in a muddy Athlete’s Village until the noon start.

In the year before the centennial race, a field of 9416 lined up for the 26.2-mile jaunt; for the 100th, a world-record 38,708 marathon participants snaked their way through the back streets of the Western Massachusetts hamlet as they prepared for the starter’s gun. As one of the lottery winners — technically, the only ones in the field other than the charity runners who perhaps had never run another marathon in their lives — we were "seeded" way in the back of the field, and while organizers had predicted it would take us 45 minutes to reach the starting line, we lucky 5000 began our pilgrimage to Boston at 12:25.

The first miles of the race are almost all downhill, and nearly deserted spectator-wise because of the rural nature of the area. I was determined not to let the quick pace of the others around me dictate my speed, since the emotion and adrenaline inherent in this event are often cited as a prime reasons why many runners overextend themselves early and end up sidelined by injury or exhaustion.

I, though, was like Rocky Balboa. I had no aspirations of winning, or, in realistic terms, reaching a particular finishing time.

My goal was simply to finish. Just go the distance. As the Rock said, "If I can go that distance ... and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood."

Maybe it would be six hours later, maybe even 10, but I’d be damned if I was going to blow my only shot in this lifetime at completing the Boston Marathon.

Eastern Hopkinton isn’t much to look at. Ashland is even worse. With all due respect to those towns that support the race and the runners who pass through their villages every April, those first five miles are downright nondescript. Living in an ugly town, though, did not deter its residents from cheering and offering water to the passing participants, even a half-hour after the race favorites had sped past.

On a sunny, 50-degree day that offered just a slight headwind (which was no doubt felt by the frontrunners, but certainly not by the bulging crowd of runners who clustered together on narrow Route 135), I cruised along happily and confidently through the first few towns, taking it all in and basking in the glow of actually participating in this magnificent event. Hopkinton, Ashland, Framingham, and Natick provided lots of loud support and urging on by the ever-growing crowds. The noise there, though, was nothing compared to the shrieks one could pick up nearly a mile away as one approached Wellesley College. Despite the fact that nearly 30,000 runners had already passed by when I reached the all-girls’ university, the young women’s exhortations provided newfound energy for any runner needing a boost as he or she approached the halfway point.

At the actual half-marathon mark, in Wellesley Center, I saw my wife and three-week-old daughter, stopping briefly to give them a hug and telling them in no uncertain terms, "I’m going to do this." Another mile down the road I saw a couple of Phoenix pals, who had made a homemade sign to wish me well, and again I felt reinvigorated.

About this time, though, things began to go figuratively downhill. As mentioned, my pre-race training had never allowed me to run more than 14 miles in one stretch, and now my body was saying to me, "Hey, we’ve just passed 15 now; we’re supposed to be wrapping things up now, aren’t we?" Heading into Newton, I tried to ignore the fact that I was starting to tire, but the impending hills loomed, and there would be no further opportunities to rejuvenate, other than calling it quits.

My pace to that point had been more or less what I expected — about eight-minute miles — but now, even with plenty of water and Gatorade continuing to fuel the engine, my body was beginning to react not only to the lack of preparation for this distance, but also to the series of rolling inclines that mark this stretch of Comm Ave. I was gradually slowing down, and even the cheers of the crowd or the summoning of inner reassurances could not reverse the inevitable: I was starting to die out there.

By the time runners reach Boston College, they know that nearly the entire remaining course is downhill, but that is not necessarily a good thing for a tiring runner. Running downhill means you are taking bigger and longer strides, and your feet are hitting that much harder when they land, pounding your quadriceps and calf muscles into oblivion. As I headed into Cleveland Circle, lined by the largest crowds of the entire course, I was fading fast, and I could now barely hear the encouragement of the crowd, even though they were undoubtedly saying something along the lines of "Just four miles to go!"

I had always imagined the glorious feeling of running through Kenmore Square, knowing that there was just one mile to go, but as I reached the fabled intersection in the shadow of the Citgo sign and Fenway Park, I was a dead man (barely) running. I could not wait for it to be over. And as many times as I had daydreamed of that moment of turning the corner on Boylston Street and sprinting that last 100 yards, it became in reality a slow, laborious haul to the finish.

And suddenly, it was over. I barely had the strength to lift my arms above my head, knowing that photographers were overhead taking pictures of each finisher (for purchase later on). My legs were like cement, I felt woozy and nauseated, and I wondered, as I walked the last four blocks down Boylston Street to the Boston Common where the finishers’ medals were being handed out: "What on earth possessed me to think that this would be an enjoyable experience?"

But I had made it. Four hours and change after leaving Hopkinton, I staggered across that big yellow line by the Boston Public Library. I picked up my medal and knew that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I would never, ever forget.

And I haven’t. But not for the reasons you would think. While I remember most aspects of that 26-mile death march, it is the memories of the pain, plain and simple, that stay with me. My calf muscles have never been the same, and whenever anyone asks me when I am going to run another marathon, I simply reflect back on how awful I felt upon the completion of the race (and in the days after, walking around like Herman Munster and avoiding stairs at all costs), and I confidently and without equivocation respond, "I’m retired."

I suppose I deserved the agony that I went through, since on that April day I ran nearly double the mileage I had ever done in any training. But I got to run a marathon — just one — and it was as an official entrant in the historic 100th running of the Boston Marathon, in the largest field ever assembled in the sport. And as the ads say, most people won’t even drive 26 miles today.

For that opportunity, I’ll be forever grateful, and I’ll always be able to say that I officially completed a Boston Marathon. Hurt like a mother, but hey — how many legitimate runners would have killed for the chance to go the distance that I got?

Yo, Adrian — I did it!

Sporting Eye will return on Monday, April 28. In the meantime, Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com