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One down, many more to go.

Mark Cagle has completed the long process of fulfilling a dream. He got to run in the Boston Marathon on Easter Monday. It wrapped up months of preparation, training, running and more running to get him ready for the race.

He ran up and down the hills of Oakdale Cemetery. He ran in and around Belhaven, where he lives. He ran a qualifying race in Wilmington for the Boston Marathon. And then he ran more and more. And more.

When April 21 arrived, he was ready to take one of the races he hoped to run in his life off his bucket list. What an experience it was.

“Yeah, all the races I did in preparation for it, it’s all preparing for that moment,” Cagle said. “You know, even some of the times I went out and I ran, and I felt great, I was like, ‘This is all Boston prep.’

“And even the times I went out and I struggled; struggling is just a way of getting it done without giving up. The days when I struggled were important. Just reflecting on the training, I missed one day of training and that’s because I needed an extra rest day.”

Leading up to the race, Cagle, his wife Brandi, his stepson, Lawson and mother-in-law Cathy Windley took the time to see many sights and sounds of the city, even attending Easter services at the Old North Church. His wife and stepson took part in the Boston 5K along with 10,000 others, but Cagle tried to reserve as much energy as he could for the big race two days later.

When the big day arrived, things didn’t go quite as planned initially. The bus to take him and others in his group to the Athletes’ Village for final preps before his 10:25 a.m. start was late. The late start meant it would be very warm for the race.

“And I knew every minute further down the road, it was going to just keep getting hotter,” Cagle said.

When he arrived, he had just enough time to get on his running socks and shoes, get his gels, salt tablets, headphones, hat, water bottle and some Teddy Grahams to munch on before making the long walk toward the start of the race.

“I had the option at that point, I could have waited and gone in a later wave, which would have meant the temperatures would have been higher,” Cagle said. “Or I could have gone in that wave and not warmed up. So that’s what I opted for, was to go in the corral I was supposed to go in, and not even warm up.

“I was like, I’m going to start the Boston Marathon with zero warm-up. And so I just tried to use that walk. I tried to walk as fast as I could and kind of jog in place a little bit, trying to get as warmed up as I could. And then, I mean, it’s a rolling start.”

As soon as the first peak and valley approached, he could see thousands ahead of him running. That was a big dose of reality as he put his plan in motion to effectively run the race of his life.

“You can see ahead of you, people taking off, and it goes downhill at the top,” Cagle said. “You can look down and see just thousands of people. So I got to the start line and I took off. My plan in mind was start slow and try to conserve in the beginning and then cruise, control, compete, and fly.”

He described the course as full of hills with miles 16-21 “a whole lot worse hills; really bad ones.” His best example of them was the ones at Oakdale Cemetery, “only 10 times worse.” Then there were the people taking selfies and lots of cups, water bottles and other obstacles to get through. When he grabbed water, he got one cup to drink and one to pour over his head. At one point, he mistakenly poured Gatorade over his head.

“I actually jumped a girl who passed out in front of me,” Cagle said. “People were breaking ankles on water bottles and on the railroad tracks and things like that.”

“I was in a war zone. It was definitely interesting to witness. I was aware those things could happen ahead of time and tried to prepare.”

Once he saw the famous Citgo sign, it was an indication there was one mile to go. He had his name on his bib with his number pinned to his shirt, which meant people who were lined up were shouting his name as he ran. He said it was so loud that he couldn’t hear his music.

“And at that point, everybody’s in celebration mode,” Cagie said. And the crowds, from the time you start to the time you finish, are just phenomenal. I mean, there’s people screaming and clapping, hollering your name.

“And it really makes a difference. You feel like people are cheering for you specifically.”

Once at the finish line, he was greeted by volunteers who gave out blankets with the marathon logo on them. He eventually saw his family and got a packet of goodies to munch on before eventually getting his medal. He finished the race in 3 hours, 20 minutes, 14 seconds.

“It was really neat to go back and watch that video and know they were yelling for me,” he said of the support he got from his family members. “And the last, probably the last six miles, I was getting text messages from all the parents, from our cross-country team. I couldn’t read them all.”

He said he met all his goals before and during the race. In fact, he even equated the days and weeks after it to losing a family member because a routine that had been so much of his life for six or more months was over. But through it all, he said it serves as motivation to run the Boston Marathon again sometime and certainly bigger ones around the country — like the New York Marathon — and ones in other countries.

“I exceeded all the miles that I had made a plan for myself,” Cagle said. “I did all the speed work, all the hard work. I did everything.

“It’s been tough afterwards because when you’re done with it, you’re done. And, you know, you’re not running every day and you’re thinking about all that prep and everything you did.

“I have to do it again. At this point I have to; I’ve got to go back out there and run a better time. I’ve got to go back out there with the experience that I have now, what I do if the buses are running late, you know, just things you don’t expect.”