Every year since 1973, Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillivray has done the same unusual thing on Patriots' Day: he has run the course himself, always after his organisational duties have wrapped up and almost always after dark. On Monday he will make it 54 in a row, closing in on one of the most quietly remarkable streaks in the sport — but this year he will not be running alone. Three of McGillivray's children, Max, Luke and Elle, will run the 130th edition with him, and retired NASA astronaut Sunita Williams will join them as part of the 20-strong Finish Strong Foundation charity team.
The family configuration is believed to be only the second time in the race's 130 editions that a parent and three adult children have competed together. Max, Luke and Elle have all completed the marathon before but never all four in the same year, and have arranged their training around their father's renowned post-race protocol: McGillivray traditionally starts his own run from Hopkinton once the course has reopened, finishing on a quiet, crowd-free Boylston Street anywhere between 8pm and midnight. This year, the children have said, they intend to hold their pace to his and do it the old way as a group.
Williams, a veteran of three long-duration spaceflights and some 322 days in orbit, has prepared for the race in part by using the running track the International Space Station crew rigged onto the tread of the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device; during her most recent mission she ran a nominal Boston Marathon in microgravity in 2023 tethered to the treadmill. Her Finish Strong effort is raising funds for "Running Is a Right", the foundation's programme providing prosthetic running blades to children who would otherwise not have access to them. Elle McGillivray is running for the same cause and her brother Max is fundraising for the Justice Health Initiative, which supports medical care for children in underserved countries.
The broader Finish Strong team of more than twenty runners includes members from the United States, Ireland, Canada and Australia. The foundation, which McGillivray set up alongside his family two decades ago, supports youth programmes that promote physical activity, literacy and acts of kindness; it has seeded dozens of community initiatives in the Boston area and further afield. This year's fundraising target, which foundation staff say the team is well positioned to exceed, is the organisation's highest yet, and reflects a broader trend of record charity fundraising by B.A.A.-licensed teams for the 130th running.
McGillivray has said repeatedly that the 2026 race feels like a milestone of a different kind than the round-number anniversaries the B.A.A. is making so much of this week. He will turn 72 in August, his three children are all in their thirties, and Monday night's finish will extend a streak that he began as a 19-year-old college student. "Every year I feel lucky to be able to do it," he told reporters at the Expo on Friday. "This year I feel lucky twice over, because the kids are going to keep me honest. Whatever time Boylston Street is when we get there, we'll get there together." Williams, sitting next to him on the panel, offered the only understatement the event has produced so far: "It's going to be a good one."