Marblehead’s Freedman ready to go the distance in Marathon

For a man who started running later in life (early 20s), Gary Freedman of Marblehead has certainly gotten quite a bit of mileage out of his sneakers over the years.Freedman, who will be running the Boston Marathon this coming Monday, will be doing so for the 23rd time. Not only that, but he has competed in over 90 marathons (in 38 states) and several 100-mile races as well.”I started running when I was in grad school,” said the 49-year old Freedman, an optometrist in Marblehead. “They were runners, and I wasn’t, and they dragged me into doing a run with them. The funny thing is that I’m still running and they’re not.”He did 10 miles that first time, and the love for running has persisted and grown for close to 30 years.”I run just about every day,” said Freedman. “I swim a lot and bike a little as well.”Freedman, whose best time for Boston is 2:57, doesn’t start training for the Marathon until 16 weeks before the race.”I have different routes, such as a six-mile, eight-mile, and 10-mile one,” he said. “I start my long run at 12 miles, than work up to 27-28 (miles). One thing I like to do is to take the train to Rockport, and run home from there. When it comes to that (particular run), I break the run into 5-6 mile segments, aiming for certain milestones along the way.”Among the 100-mile races he’s run is the Green Mountain race in Vermont (he has competed in races of different mileage in 38 different states), but one Freedman’s especially proud of is one he ran in Colorado in 1997.”It was the Readville 100, run at 14,000 feet (above sea level),” he recalled. “There were 250 runners that started the race, but only 60 finished it. One of those races usually takes 30 hours to run overall, and some people sleep for a bit in the middle of them. There were 5-6 from Massachusetts that started, but I was the only one (from the state) that finished.”Freedman, who’s also the director of the three-mile Dory Run Road Race (held every Memorial Day in Swampscott), finds the Boston Marathon quite appealing.”The distance attracts me, and it’s good to conquer the distance,” he said. “There’s a little bit of nerves each year, but the fact that you can push yourself beyond what you’re able to do is a great feeling.”He belongs to North Shore Striders, a local running group since 1986.”We have a good core of people that run Boston every year, usually 10-12, though I like running (every race) by myself,” he said.When it comes to running in Boston, Freedman, who also runs plenty of local races as well, stated, “Some people ask me which race they should do, and I always tell them that if they go and do just one, then that’s the one. It’s the one that they have to go above any others.”