I should have known. Or at the very least, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
When I made the decision to run the Boston Marathon last fall, it came with a price tag I was more than happy to pay. For those who don’t know, you can’t just “sign up” to take the line along with 30,000 other runners each year.
For most participants, to enter the race, you have to provide proof of running ANOTHER marathon under a certain time limit determined by your age. For guys like me, that means that just to have a shot at getting picked, you have to run 26.2 miles in a maximum of 2 hours, 55 minutes – an average of 6:40 per mile.
Needless to say, I’m nowhere near that fast.
Instead, I made a promise to the Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: In exchange for running the marathon with one of their race entries, I would raise a minimum of $10,000 to support cancer research at one of the most esteemed institutes in the world.
To be clear: when they say you MUST raise the $10,000, they’re not playing around. You fork over your credit card info, so if you don’t hit the mark, it’s no problem on their end – they’ll just charge you for the difference. (Shout-out to my family, who were convinced when I told them that this would end up as a black mark on my credit report and prevent me from getting a home loan.)
The figure was a little daunting. So, naturally, my overcommitment-addicted brain said “forget the $10K. Why not go for 15?” It was a number that I really had no business putting down, but I did it anyway.
Little did I know – because this community is absolutely off-the-walls amazing – I could have gone even higher. And now that one of the most insane months of my life has come to a close, I’ve finally had enough time to think and reflect.
The words overwhelmed and humbled don’t fully convey my thanks to this town, my family and friends for the ridiculous amount of support I received, but I’m chugging Celsius to stay awake, and right now they’re the best I’ve got.
As I write this column, we’ve raised $19,122.03 to combat the world’s most hated disease – and I could not be more thankful for every single person who made that happen, whether it was with their credit cards, their sweat, their words of encouragement or even a honk on the road during a long training run.
Thank you to every single donor, whether you bought a $20 Super Bowl square, sent me $5 to add a weird song to my running playlist, or wrote a big-time check as the backbone of my fundraising efforts.
Thank you to Dale, Courtney and Kaylynn Coburn, who gave up many mornings together so that Dale could pound the pavement with me at 6 a.m. and make sure I wasn’t alone on some of my longest runs.
Thank you to Andy Sharf and the entire team at Marathon Grill and Ale House for raising more than I could have ever asked for in a golf cart raffle that supercharged my donations.
Thank you to our team at the Weekly, who constantly asked me what I needed and insisted on putting an ad in the paper to help the fundraiser, even when I wasn’t comfortable enough to do it myself.
Thank you to my New England family and friends, some of whom traveled from hours away to pop in at strategic spots on the course and re-stock me with water and energy gummies right before the race’s worst hills.
Thank you to the people who honked at me on training runs, sent texts, tracked the race, or just offered words of encouragement for more than seven months. When I hit double-digit miles on hot days in training and just felt like stopping, the feeling that I had an entire town behind me is a huge part of what kept me going.
Because, even though I’ve seen it before and I should have known, I never could have expected a response like this to make a difference in the lives of cancer patients and make the 2025 Boston Marathon one of the most meaningful days of my life.
And all I want to say is thank you.
