Nick Rindenello is Harvard’s fastest runner. (Photos by Jen Manell)
Karen van Cleef waves at the Press photographer.
The traditional yellow and blue banners lined the streets of Boston for the several weeks leading up to this year’s highly anticipated 126th Boston Marathon, which returned to Patriots’ Day for the first time in three years, having been distrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. As Harvard resident Sue George approached the finish line on Boylston Street, she held her phone up in the air so her 87-year-old father could end the 26.2-mile race by her side.
“I was like, ‘This is what it’s like to finish the Boston Marathon! This is for you Dad,’” said George, who completed her eighth consecutive Boston Marathon and has run about 25 marathons in all since 2015. “He was watching because he’s in a retirement community and he’s never been, so I was talking to him through the whole thing.”
George was subject to unusual training requirements this year. She and others who ran the virtual Boston Marathon in October had only six months to train. The Boston Athletic Association offers four training plans for novice to advanced athletes, each requiring 20 weeks of preparation. For athletes who participated in the October marathon, their window between recovery time and the start of a new training plan was shortened.
Though George found this challenging and said she wasn’t as successful as she was in October, she enjoyed the energy of the crowds and running on a historical occasion. George finished the race on the 50th anniversary of the marathon’s women’s division, with a time of 3:43:04. The swarms of spectators lining the course, holding posters and ringing cowbells, encouraged the athletes as they ran from Hopkinton to Copley Square in Boston.
“It feels just like yesterday I ran that other one,” said George, who finished the October race with a time of 3 hours, 33 minutes, 42 seconds. “I feel like there were more people than ever this time, not necessarily the spectators, but at Athletes’ Village, and from the start line it was very crowded.”
Out of the 25,314 athletes who competed in this year’s marathon, organized by the Boston Athletic Association, eight were from Harvard. Nicholas Rindenello, an avid runner in local races, placed 314th in the all-participants division. With an average pace of 5 minutes and 59 seconds per mile, Rindenello finished the marathon with a time of 2:36:37.
George is taking a few days to recover from the race before heading to California for Boston 2 Big Sur, a back-to-back marathon event requiring participants to travel over 3,000 miles to their next race. “It’s a challenge where you do Boston, then jump on a plane to do another one in Big Sur,” said George, adding that a week before the virtual marathon in October, she had just completed a marathon in London. “I tend to do two at once; I guess that’s my new pattern.”
With no end in sight, George expects to run more consecutive Boston Marathons: “I have to keep my streak going as long as I physically can.”
Sue George holds up her phone to FaceTime her father as she nears the finish line. (Photo by Amanda LaRiviere)
Results
The results for Harvard’s Boston Marathon participants in the overall race are as follows:
- Nicholas Rindenello – 314th (2:36:37)
- Spencer Holland – 1,058th (2:47:24)
- John Lackner – 6,004th (3:13:25)
- Yong Xue – 7,683rd: (3:19:45)
- Jon Schoenberg – 8,182nd (3:21:39)
- Karen van Cleef – 11,554th (3:34:11)
- Travis Dery – 13,727th (3:42:53)
- Sue George -13,791st (3:43:04)
