“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.” 

“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.”