Boston's Run to Remember 2025

When Xander was 11, he decided he was ready for a half marathon. We planned a trip to Boston and all decided to run. Read all about Xander’s first Boston’s Run to Remember.

Xander’s friend Jack signed up to run the 5 mile race - his first race! After a very poor night of sleep, we met up in our hotel lobby, grabbed a picture and hopped into an Uber to take us to the start. It was a slightly chilly morning. Xander was ready to run fast, and Scott and I had taken a more modest approach with short sleeves.

Scott led us through some warm-up dynamic stretching near the start and we grabbed another group picture before we headed to the starting corral.

Scott nabbed one last picture of us before we started. It was super sunny.

Once I selected my spot in the corral, I got my Shoks turned on and my playlist started and paused. Then, I listened to the folks around me chatting about their upcoming race. A couple of guys behind me talked about how they run this race every year. Boston’s Run to Remember is a a really fun race celebrating first responders. It has such a positive energy, and takes you on a really nice course around the city.

I grabbed a very short video of the kick off to the race.

Back to Xander. His sister ran her first half marathon when she was in 8th grade. The two of us signed up for the Philadelphia Half marathon together and ran the entire race together, despite having not trained together at all. It was a magical experience for both of us - we stayed in a hotel together, and had a great adventure. Read all about it. Being the 2nd child, Xander knew it was feasible to run the distance, so he went for it in grade 7.

Here we are in 2025 and Xander is 21 and has really leaned into running. This course is great because you have a couple of out and backs where you can see folks that are faster than you coming back. As we hit the 2nd out and back which is the longer of the two, I decided I would count people. I thought I’d see Xander somewhere in a place that was still countable. I started counting - first the leader and then a very large gap followed by 2, 3, 4 and XANDER. I screamed “You are in fifth!” He smiled. He knew - his dad had yelled the same thing a little bit earlier.

I was so proud! He would later end up 6th overall with a fine pace. We dug up those old pictures of him running with me the first time all those years ago. We all got a good laugh thinking of little 7th grade Xander running with his mom jabbering constantly thinking he needed motivation.

Back to my race. This was race 4 in my lineup of 5 half marathons. I decided early in the run not to look at my watch at all. I’d run by feel and just see how things went. I’d come to regret that because I came in just a bit over a 2 hour marathon. If I had looked at my watch, I was reasonably confident I could have hit two hours. But, I also had an enjoyable run thinking about the city, the first responders, and let my mind just be grateful that I can do this. I thought of how Scott and I inspired our kids to run, and how Jack was out running his first race. It all felt really special.

I also wished I had worn different clothing and was so grateful that Scott said right before we parted ways, “if you get hot you can always take your shirt off.” At mile 6 I stuffed my shirt into one of my giant pockets in my leggings. A tank top would have been the way to go! Without the suggestion, I never would have thought of this. It made me much more comfortable for the 2nd half of the race.

View my Strava flyover.

This was a great race with almost perfect weather. Now just one half marathon to go!

13.1 mi in 2:05:21 // 1747 of 4170 overall, 22 of 90 age group, 9:34 pace // strava