One of my roommates said he'd do it, too, but I knew all along he wouldn't, and so did he. Lots of people inevitably plan to do it, but preparation just involves too much work for a guy to go through with, and even if one selects a non-training policy, the thought of actually covering 26 miles on April 19 is usually too much to overcome unless one is sufficiently masochistic.

MY WORKOUTS officially began on Sunday, March 24, when I ran five miles, three times around the circuit from Newell Boathouse over Eliot and Larz Anderson Bridges back to the Boathouse. I had run, intermittently, distances like a mile or two throughout the year. I loved those five miles, but picked up blisters. Two days later I ran an energetic two miles or so, but blisters stopped me and kept me idle on Wednesday, too.

In the Frankie Avalon "Bobbysox to Stockings" tradition, I went to Brine's in Harvard Square and picked up my first pair of Adidas running shoes, the $13.50 variety, to replace my P.F. Flyers. Immediately, I went out and ran four miles in the stiff new shoes and had a new set of blisters.

My next good workout was the next Monday, April Fool's Day, when I ran 8 1/2 miles without problems. It was spring recess, and I was in Cambridge since I was a coxswain of sorts for the freshman lightweights. I was running evenings around the paths of the Yard, averaging 5 miles. It was still strictly minor league.

On Saturday, April 6, my training began to blossom. I was running boathouse circuits again, and I was a bad enough cox, ranking third, to have almost every afternoon off and thus lots of running time. I averaged 12 miles the next five days, but then a new problem: my calves tightened up.

I thought this might be just the last straw because I could not perform well at all on them. A day off, 8 1/2 miles the next day, and my legs were okay. On both Saturday and Sunday I ran 15.3 miles, and with the Marathon five days away, I thought maybe it'd go well after all.

Monday I ran 17 miles in the rain, and concluded my training with -6 and 20 miles on Tuesday and Wednesday. The day before the race I did nothing, reasoning that the rest would be better.

One big fault of my procedure was that I ran a big distance once a day rather than running part of it in the morning and the rest of it later. The important thing seems to be the total number of miles per week rather than running 20 miles at all once. Track coaches think it's better twice a day, too, and that's how I did it this year.

Goals. I naturally had to have something to shoot for. I had averaged under 8 minutes per mile for 15 miles, but just aimed for breaking four hours. I also wanted to finish in the top half of the field off 900 starters. Never having run for a track team and in fact, never having been much of a jock, I was scared of the other runners. The Herald ran a picture of six members of the Harvard track team preparing for the race. How could I ever beat such professionals?

On April 19, I rose at 7 a.m. and made a beeline for the Union for breakfast. The lady at the desk and some more important bitch told me, while the Harvard Band was filing in to eat, that since I wasn't in the band I could not eat so early. Pissed off.

My next stop was the Bick. I ordered their $1.50 steak for protein, and turned down the guy's offer of french fries and a roll three times. I sat down with my steak and surveyed the list of entrants in the Marathon, printed in the newspaper. I went through all 1100 of the runners without finding my name. Trouble. I started through again, and finally, there I was, number 527. Now I was psyched.

I hopped onto the subway and was at the Pru before long. I got my number there and jumped in the bus. I sat with some kid who had come from Buffalo. He said he'd run about 3 miles a day the past week, and I began to wonder just what kind of a fiasco this was. I looked around the bus at the seasoned veterans and figured there was perhaps one guy, a man in his fifties, that I could hope to beat.

At Hopkinton Junior High, runners covered their crotches with Johnson & Johnsons, rubbed in Ben-Gay, and got their heartbeats checked by the doctors.

Jock Semple was flaming around as he had been at the Pru earlier. Like any outspoken man, Jock has his share of enemies. At a recent road race an official was heard to say: "Where's Semple? I hope he went home, but I doubt he did."

Jock's problems will be worse this year since recent tabulations reveal that there are 1350 entrants. Jock told the Herald's Tim Horgan how he felt the other day. "The greatest race in the world is becoming a three-ring circus. I'm all for physical fitness, but this is ridiculous," Semple quipped.