BC Runners Return to the 2022 Boston Marathon — The Heights

Friday 2 December 2022

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On the chilly morning of Monday April 18, over 25 Boston College students and faculty traveled 26 miles southwest of Boston to the town of Hopkinton, Mass. to begin the Boston marathon. College students, local Bostionians, and supporters of the runners gathered on the streets along the 26.2 miles to celebrate the second Boston marathon of this past year, and this year marks the 50th anniversary of women being allowed to run the marathon. After 26.2 miles, these runners crossed the finish line in downtown Boston surrounded by cheering crowds.

Read their stories below to learn more about each runner’s experience training for and completing the 126th Boston marathon.

Tim Smyth

“Of course, you know, at BC, as a senior, it’s such a momentous day that, you know, everyone’s looking forward to, and they're all cheering you on,” Smyth said. “So all my friends were [cheering me on,] as I said. It was really amazing. It’s really what I wanted to do, to finish [my time at] BC doing the Marathon.”

Jack Grady

“It’s definitely a day I'll never forget,” Grady said. “I felt a lot of love from people I did know and didn't know.”

Drew Sandifer

“I’ve wanted to run the marathon as a BC student since I came to BC,” Sandifer said. “Finally getting that experience was really cool. The people I wanted to be out there watching me were there, so it meant a lot.”

Cooper Schmitz

“I got this haircut like four days before the marathon just because the mullet won, so I was able to raise like 500 bucks which was really cool,” Schmitz, CSOM ’22, said.

On-Campus Profiles

McKenna Bush

“I came to Boston to run the marathon in college, and I just fell in love with the city,” Bush said. “It’s hard to come to Boston as a runner and not just fall in love with the Boston area. I remember having a thought seven years ago of ‘Oh my gosh, I love this place. I want to live here someday.’”

Rev. Brian Dunkle

“I stopped doing [marathons] because they take a lot of time and a lot of training,” Dunkle said. “But many people encouraged me to do the Boston Marathon because it's so famous and so old, the legacy attached to it, the tradition.”

Emily Knous

“I would say I have been a runner without being a runner,” Knous said. “I’ve always been that person on the soccer team that could run for days, and I have enjoyed running my whole life—we’re the family who does 5Ks on major holidays. … I’ve grown up loving it as an outlet, something away from soccer.”

Caroline Kacha

“Once you get over [Heartbreak Hill] and … you see the place that you've been over the last four years—it just kind of was a sigh of relief,” Kacha said. “Honestly, I can't even put into words how amazing it was to kind of just see all the people that I've spent my entire four years here with just there supporting me.”

Mae Mae Utsch

“I have always wanted to run the marathon,” Utsch, CSON ‘22, said, “It’s always been like a bucket list item for me … and we had ended up having two this year, so I was thinking that it was a perfect opportunity to have one Marathon Monday date with my friends in the Mods and then also be able to cross the finish line and achieve that kinda bucket list item.”

Brigid Knowles

“The BC community is so supportive to each other in everything and this was definitely no exception towards that,” Knowles said. “And it was just such a fun, crazy environment and definitely the last push I needed to get to the finish line.”

Mary Brooks

“Mile 21 was awesome because I recognized some people but I felt like some people recognized me too,” Brooks said. “I think I had my hand out for like, a half mile just giving everyone high fives. So yeah, I think, that's like a very powerful energy.”

Sophie Oliver

“I’m a senior now, and I just remember being a freshman and going to my first Marathon Monday, and I was moved to tears by people I didn’t even know running by BC,” Oliver, MCAS ’22, said. “So, it’s always been something I wanted to do.”

2022 Marathon Profiles

Evan Fagan

“The general idea of going through a hard time and pushing through it and knowing that with enough hard work, you can hopefully make it out on the other side, definitely helps me with school and job searching,” Fagan said. “It might be tough now, but if you just push through it and keep working, hopefully you can make it through.”

Quinn Cunningham

“I … boxed out an area for myself, so I could high five people,” he said. “I just came down Comm. Ave, just like high fiving everyone on the side. … It was such an adrenaline boost, and I probably ran down it too quickly. All my friends were like, ‘We waited so long for you, and you were there for like half a second.’ But I was just really excited. So yeah, it was super cool.”

Harris Craycraft

“I think being a BC student is probably the best way to run the Boston Marathon,” Craycraft said. “There's so many people yelling out on the course, you know, cheering for BC or for the Eagles, and I couldn't be more grateful or more proud to wear the BC jersey while running the course. It’s super special.”

Shawna Cooper-Gibson

“[I] wanted to stay healthy while doing something for myself,” she said. “No one cares how far or how fast I run. It is something I do for me.”

Olivia Colombo

“I went in last time with almost zero expectations other than I wanted to finish, and I think this time I had more of an idea of what I was capable of and what I wanted to do,” Colombo, LSEHD ’22, said.

Joe Bednar

“To be able to tell my mom I’m running for cancer research was very, very cool,” Bednar said.

Mia O’Connell

“There was no feeling after that, like running away from Mile 21 I was so happy that the last five miles felt like nothing,” O’Connell said. “Like I don't remember them at all.”

Hannah Buchsbaum

“I thought it was really overwhelming at first, but you just take it day by day and I think it’s something that really anyone can do,” Buchsbaum said. “I think the coolest thing about … running a marathon, too, is just seeing so many people and knowing that each person kind of has their own story and their own way of getting there.”

Danielle Morin

"When I was a freshman, I watched the marathon for the first time, and I was just blown away,” she said. “When it was late enough in the day that the charity runners were coming past, I just felt so inspired. I could see myself out there because they were fighting for something bigger than themselves, working for a cause that they had poured their time and their hearts into.”

Grace Yang

“I ran in honor and memory of my father because he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2005,” she said. “It really meant a lot to me to run in honor of him and raise money for other cancer patients.”

Alex Walsh

“I guess for senior year I wanted to, especially for second semester… to set a kind of goal and a challenge for myself,” Walsh, MCAS ’22, said. “Especially something that was out of my comfort zone.”

Nina Khaghany

“When I got to see Newton, after running all those places, it was just like, I finally made it home,” Khaghany said.

On-Campus Profiles

Annie Murphy

“When I started to come down Comm Ave. after Linden Lane, it was just the coolest experience seeing all my friends and hearing him scream, and it totally got me through the last bit of the marathon,” Murphy said. “So that was totally the hardest part but seeing them just rejuvenated me.”

Felipe Pardo

“The biggest obstacle was mentalizing something that was so far away because I was making choices that would benefit me in the long term,” Pardo said. “So it forced me to become more intentional with my time in the short term for a long-term goal, which is a lesson that I learned that I really liked.”

Christine Flatley

“I ran a really good half marathon [in Newport], and then a few weeks later, I did the Cambridge Half Marathon with some BC friends, too,” said Flatley. “And so, by that point, I started to feel like I knew that the next step was the marathon.”

Maira Marques Samary

“I was living in Brazil, and people were saying, ‘Oh, but my dream is running the Boston Marathon,’” Samary said. “So I had the goal of one time in my life running the Boston Marathon. The Boston Marathon is like the Holy Grail of everyone that runs.”

Jack Bracher

“The marathon has been a part of my life my entire life, and my mom ran it when I was younger,” Bracher, MCAS ’22, said. “Seeing her run it in the fall made me want to run it in the spring.”

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