The Boston Marathon Podcast

The 2018 Boston Marathon Champion discusses the ups and downs of her running career, and a really wet, cold, and glorious day in Boston.

Roger Robinson, a professor, a writer, and a world-class runner, joins Tom Grilk on the Boston Marathon podcast. With years of experience in a myriad of areas, Robinson shares his perspectives on literature, running, the intersection between them, and the current state of running. And, he's married to women's running pioneer Kathrine Switzer, making he and she a top candidate for the world's most recognized running couple.

While training with her coach in the Winter of 1966, Kathrine was told that 'women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon'. Flabbergasted, the Syracuse University student set her mind on doing just that - and in 1967, she made way for Boston. She signed her name 'K.V.' on the application form and started the 1967 race without incident. But a few miles down the road, race director Jock Semple got wind of a woman in his race, and he saw her, he tried to take her bib numbers away. After all, the Amateur Athletics Union did not allow for women to compete in the B.A.A. Boston Marathon, and Jock wasn't about to let an 'imposter' run in his race. The pictures of the incident went around the world, and Kathrine became an icon for women and their right to an even playing field near and far. Today, with her creation of Fearless 261, her work continues. She sat down with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk in May of 2018 to talk through the day that was, and all that has happened since.

There are many inclines along the course of the Boston Marathon, but they don't phase five-time champion Tatyana McFadden, who has overcome far greater obstacles in her time. In this episode, Tatyana sits down with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk and B.A.A. Board Member Cheri Blauwet to talk about her success and struggles both in and out of the sport. And, as Tatyana explains, if anything scares her, it's the early downhills of the Boston Marathon.

Cheri Blauwet grew up in Iowa as an involved student - student council and academic groups filled her schedule. Sports and competitive racing rarely drew her interest. After all, Blauwet used a wheelchair to get around, and didn't feel that the track team was something she was cut out for. But with the persistent encouragement of a high school advisor, Blauwet eventually joined the track team, and once she started pushing laps, she never looked back. She went on to compete at the University of Arizona, several Paralympic Games, and road races around the word, where she often found success. Blauwet won the 2004 and 2005 Boston Marathon, and today serves on the governing body of the Boston Athletic Association, the organization which hosts the annual race. Since her racing days, she has excelled in a myriad of other roles: a professor, a doctor, and most recently, a parent. Cheri sits down with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk to talk about her long resume and all that is ahead.

The B.A.A. Medical Coordinator Chris Troyanos manages an enormous team of medical professionals to help care for thousands of runners at each Boston Marathon, and he does it sometimes under the most difficult weather conditions. From the cold, wind, and rain of the 2018 Boston Marathon, to the heat of 2012 and 2004, Chris and his team are prepared for nearly anything on race day. That preparation was no more evident than on April 15, 2013, when two bombs exploded near the finish line and the Medical Tents and the people who worked within them performed quickly and as planned. The quick thinking and decisive actions of experiences professionals and race volunteers helped save lives. Chris joins B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk to talk about that day, and all days in which the medical services of the Boston Marathon are put through different tests. The Boston Marathon Podcast is presented by the Boston Athletic Association and WBZ-TV.

The 1968 Boston Marathon Champion reflects on his decades of contributions to the sport of running, as both a competitor and a writer. Amby has seen many changes sweep through the sport of running since his first impressions of the Boston Marathon as a Wesleyan Student in 1965. He has experienced them as a competitor, and as a long time contributor and editor to Runner's World magazine. He shares these observations with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk, just days before he takes on the 2018 Boston Marathon on the 50th anniversary of his win in 1968.

Winning the Boston Marathon had been a goal of Greg Meyer's for several years, and one day in 1983, it all came together and he broke the tape in 2:09:00. He sat down with Tom Grilk in March of 2018 to talk about that special day, his training leading up to it, and the state of the sport, both then in the 1970s and 1980s, and now.

In the 1960s, there was a belief - by some - that women were not physiologically able to run long distances, like a marathon. Roberta Gibb disagreed. She would run for hours, regularly, in Southern California. One time, she ran into Mexico by accident. In 1966 she rode a bus from California to Boston, allured of a new challenge - the Boston Marathon. She convinced her mother to take her to the Start Line, hid in the bushes, and after the gun fired, hopped into the race. She never looked back. Five decades on, she sits down with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk and shares her stories of running the Boston Marathon, and the wide array of endeavors she has pursued since. This podcast, and all episodes, are sponsored by the B.A.A. and WBZ-TV, in Boston.

You could say it all started for Meb as a seventh-grader who ran a 5:20 mile in gym class. But, you would have missed an unbelievable journey that preceded it – a civil war that threatened the already-destitute conditions in Eritrea in the 1980s, a refugee voyage to Italy, and a test of a family’s resilience to get to America, that thrived once on its shores. This resilience would be tested throughout Meb's running career: through the death of a training friend, excruciating injuries, and the loss of his main sponsor. It was fitting, therefore, that Meb, an American citizen emboldened by these years of resilience, broke the tape in the 2014 Boston Marathon. “That moment, when I won the Boston Marathon,” Meb says, “I knew I was on this earth to be impactful through running.” B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk sits down with Meb in this week's episode.

In the world of running, Dave McGillivray has covered a lot of ground, from running a shoe store, to training with world class athletes, and now serving as the Boston Marathon race director. He's also run across the United States twice, and has run more than 150 marathons and "about" 150,000 miles in his life. Now, as leader of Dave McGillivray Sports Enterprises, he leads many races around the country, and is always looking for his next accomplishment. Though it all, there is the matter of being a husband and the father of five - a role he cherishes deeply, and especially in the wake of a health scare. Dave dishes on all these roles, decades of running tales, and whether he continues to believe, as he has often been heard to say, that sleep is overrated.

In the 1960’s, the word 'pioneer' sounded romantic to Sara Mae Berman. Little did she know at the time that pioneering would become part of her legacy. As one of the first women to run long distances, and the second woman to win the Boston Marathon, Berman won in 1969, 1970, and 1971. Her accomplishments paved the way for Berman’s long road for women’s advocacy and inclusion in sports, and for tens of thousands of women who have run the Boston Marathon since. Along with Bobbi Gibb and Kathrine Switzer, Sara Mae Berman was at the forefront of women’s marathoning. Now 81, she’s holding a high pace of daily activities and in sport.

Jack Fultz, born in Northwestern Pennsylvania as the sixth of seven children, grew his running career through high school, the University of Arizona, the Coast Guard, and Georgetown. In an attempt to qualify for the 1976 Olympic Trials, Fultz needed a sub-2:20 marathon performance in Boston to hit the standard. As he arrived in Hopkinton on Patriots’ Day 1976, the mercury reached to 100 degrees. In what’s famously remembered as “the run for the hoses”, Fultz picked off one opponent at a time, grabbed whatever water the spectators put out along the course, and prevailed to win. He sits down with B.A.A. CEO Tom Grilk to talk about his 1976 victory, and his other Boston appearances through the 1970s.

A four-time champion of the Boston and New York City Marathons, Bill Rodgers is a global ambassador for the sport, and, now 70, is still tackling road races near and far. Among other roles, he's an ambassador for John Hancock at each Boston Marathon, and can be found bounding around the city each year around the race. After his collegiate running days at Wesleyan University, Rodgers moved to Boston, worked in a hospital, and his running ambitions diminished. He dropped out of the first Boston Marathon he ran in 1973, he finished 14th in 1974, and had his first running breakthrough in March of 1975, when he earned a bronze medal in the World Cross Country Championships in Rabat, Morocco. While racing the Boston Marathon in April of 1975, his shoelace became untied while leading the race in Newton. He went to a knee and laced up, and when he started up again he never looked back, winning in 2:09:55. With the performance, Rodgers set a personal best by about ten minutes, a new Course Record, new American Record, and began a legendary running career.