The 130th Boston Marathon will send 30,000 athletes from Hopkinton to Boston on Monday, and the field includes some of the event’s most recognizable names. Chelsea Clinton is running Boston for the first time, Zdeno Chara is back for a third try, and Sunita Williams is returning to a race she has taken on before, including once as a 17-year-old.
Clinton earned her place in Boston after running 3:44:22 at the New York City Marathon last year. Chara, who ran Boston in 2023 and again in 2024, recently became a World Marathon Major Six Star finisher and is running in support of the Thomas E. Smith Foundation. Williams has also finished a marathon on a treadmill aboard the International Space Station, a reminder that for some runners, the Boston course is only the latest test.
The race itself is still the same punishing 26.2-mile stretch, but the interest on Monday is less about the winners than the names in the pack. The marathon has long drawn athletes with different reasons for lining up, and this year’s mix includes public figures, former stars and runners with personal causes tied to the road.
Jarryd Herren is running with his wife, Heather, to mark 15 years of the addiction recovery nonprofit they founded. The Herren Project began in 2011, after he got sober, and Herren said he is running to raise money so more people can find recovery, more families can heal, and more stories can come full circle. “It’s a full circle moment for both of us — a celebration of healing, love, and the life we’ve worked so hard to reclaim. It’s also about every person still struggling and every family grieving the loss of a loved one,” he said.
Ryan DaRosa is also in the field, running Boston in support of the Claddagh Fund. He said running has become a form of meditation since he got sober several years ago, and he has another target in mind: beating Oprah’s marathon time. DaRosa narrowly eclipsed Oprah’s 4:29:15 mark at the 2024 Mesa Marathon in Arizona.
That gives Monday’s race a distinctly human edge. The clock will matter at the front, but for many in this field the better story is what brought them to the start line, and what they are carrying with them when the race begins.
