Woodstock boys basketball coach Al Baker made his marathon running debut in 2012 when he tackled the Chicago Marathon. In the 12 months since, Baker finished a trail marathon in Indianapolis in August before completing the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon on his birthday on Oct. 6 – a year to the day he conquered his first 26.2-mile course. For Baker, who played baseball in college and who coaches his son's soccer and baseball teams in addition to running the Blue Streaks' basketball program, running has provided a perspective on competition and life he may not have discovered otherwise.

As a former athlete, you don't get quite as many chances to get out there and compete the way you used to. So that kind of appealed to me. I was a football, basketball, baseball guy in high school and I never really did the individual stuff. So when I started running, that was the first time I did something that was on my own. There's a certain solitude to going on an 18- or 20-mile run and just taking three or four hours when you're out there on your own to think and clear your head a little bit. With teaching and coaching and kids (at home), life can get kind of chaotic. There's just so much going on. I love coaching and I love teaching and I love coaching my son's Little League team and soccer team, but it's also nice to have a block of time when you don't really have any responsibilities. You can kind of let go for a little while.

I enjoy a challenge and a new kind of challenge. When I ran my first 5K five years ago, I was like, 'Wow – I can't believe I did that' and now, three miles is nothing when you're training for a marathon. I had to increase my challenge. So after I did a marathon, I thought maybe I would try and do a couple (in a year) or maybe I'll try and do a trail marathon. So finding new challenges is part of the appeal of me.

The first time you pass through (the finish-line chute) is amazing. Chicago is a kind of unique race anyway with 35,000 people and the streets are lined for 26 miles. There's not a lot of marathons when you have that exact experience. Even though it's obviously an individual thing, it's a group effort – especially at the back of the pack where I'm normally at in these races. But it's kind of nice. You're not competing with anybody, but everybody is supporting each other and trying to pick each other up. That's kind of a nice way to run a race.

I think when the tragedy in Boston (at the marathon) took place, it's almost like you want to find your connection to that. These people have gone through this tragedy and whether you have friends who lived in Boston for a little while or you say, 'Oh, my sister ran Boston' – or in my case, when I ran Chicago, you have this connection. I remember telling people at the time about the line in the Jackie Robinson movie "42" about sympathizing meaning that you have suffer what other people suffered. I think people were trying to sympathize with that kind of suffering. So I think to me, that was something I experienced a little bit. I crossed the finish line and I saw my wife and my kids and I know there's people who weren't able to experience that the way I did and so I guess that was my kind of connection.

• I'm Just Saying is a regular Sunday feature. If there's someone you'd like to see featured, write to me at jarnold@shawmedia.com or send me a message on Twitter @NWH_JeffArnold.