Next Monday, when runners line up in Hopkinton for the 115th Boston Marathon, they will share a common goal: to finish.
All of them have been training their hearts out for the 26.2-mile race, but some have more than Heartbreak Hill and the final turn onto Bolyston Street on their mind: They’ve been pulling at the strings of other people’s hearts to reach their charity fund-raising goals.
“When you turn the corner to go down Boylston, usually you are crying that you are so thrilled that you got through it,’’ said Maureen Hayes of Scituate. “From the start line to the finish line, the crowd is unbelievable, so motivating.’’
This will be Hayes’s fifth Boston Marathon, but her first running for GoKids, an educational nonprofit that promotes healthy, active living for children through proper nutrition and regular exercise. She reached her goal of raising $5,000 weeks ahead of the race and anticipates she’ll surpass it when corporate matching programs are tallied.
Katie and Rick Friedel, also of Scituate, raised almost $18,000 last year running for GoKids. Katie Friedel’s time of 3:49:44 qualified her for this year’s race, but when her husband decided that last year’s would be his first and last marathon, she needed a new running buddy and turned to Hayes, who is her neighbor.
Although Friedel, 43, qualified for this year’s race by running within the 3:50 time limit for female runners in her 40-44 age group, she could have also earned her runner’s bib through GoKids.
Charitable organizations receive a limited number of bibs from the Boston Athletic Association, organizer of the Boston Marathon. Those who get a bib through this application process receive a waiver, meaning they don’t have to qualify by time but must meet the minimum fund-raising goal of $3,250. The individual charities can set higher fund-raising minimums, as well as allow time-qualifying runners to run on their team without taking one of the waivered bibs.
Preparing to run in the Marathon, though, is another story. Most will log hundreds of miles in training for the run.
Susan Hurley, who manages the GoKids team, has made running for charities her career as she organizes, trains, and fund-raises with runners through her organization, Charity Teams. This year, she is managing six of the 24 teams officially registered to run in the Marathon. All six teams train and strategize fund-raising opportunities together, creating a support system for the runners not just in seeking donations and pledges but also in the arduous physical training.
“Attending the team events have been really helpful,’’ said Jill Reilly of Westwood, who is running for Bay State Games, one of the teams managed by Hurley. “I feel like I’m not totally alone in the 15-, 20-mile [training] runs.’’
Reilly said she was thrilled for the opportunity to run for a program in which she took part when she was younger. Bay State Games’ mission is to provide access to physical education and athletic programs to people of all ages in Massachusetts.
Reilly is her team’s top fund-raiser this year with roughly $7,300 and she hopes to bump it to $8,000 before the starter’s gun goes off Monday morning. She ran a half-marathon last May and decided to run a full one in the fall. She had to apply to run on a charity team, since she didn’t have a qualifying time for a race bib.
For Milton resident Justin Renz, next week’s race will be his seventh Boston Marathon but 15th marathon overall. For the past three years, he’s participated as a qualified runner for Children’s Hospital’s Miles for Miracles team, finishing last year with a time of 2:45:53. The Miles for Miracles team partners each runner with a patient, to help drive home its fund-raising goal.
Renz’s motivational partner is 6-year-old Cameron MacPhail of Braintree. Renz says Cameron, who has a heart condition that sends him into the hospital for checkups all too frequently, is about his children’s age.
“It’s a way of keeping me grounded and being appreciative of my kids’ health,’’ Renz said. He and his wife, Jen, have 6-year-old twins Annie and Jonah and a 5-year-old son, Will.
Renz, Friedel, Hayes, and other runners agreed the overly snowy January and February made it difficult for them to train, forcing some indoors.
Children’s book illustrator and avid bird watcher Jan Brett of Hingham said she escaped the February snow with her annual birding trip to Africa and was avoiding wild animals instead of patches of black ice. On one of her longer runs while in Zimbabwe, Brett ran through a tribal town were local children joined her, keeping pace in flip-flops, she said.
At 61, Brett says she is hoping to break the 4-hour mark, after qualifying for this year’s event with a time of 4:07:22 last year. She is running for Marathon Strides Against Multiple Sclerosis to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Greater New England Chapter.
“I’d encourage people to run for these organizations, because you are doing so much good,’’ she said. “We are kind of thinking that if they can do for MS what they did for AIDS and have it be a livable thing, that’d be great.’’
Marathon officials estimate that roughly 26,000 people will be running on Monday, with 1,200 running on official charity teams. In communities south of Boston, more than 600 runners will be looking to break personal records, both for time and fund-raising.
“It’s addicting. I’m totally addicted,’’ Hayes said of the Marathon.
Published in the Boston Globe and on Boston.com – April 14, 2011
By Sarah Moomaw
Globe Correspondent