Our Boston Marathon

By Shaun Evans

Shamus and I have been running together since he was old enough to sit in a jogging stroller. Shamus led the way as I trained for dozens of marathons in his early years. In 2013, Shamus became more than just my training partner. That year he and I began racing together. Since then, we have run countless road races of every distance, trail races, triathlons, ultramarathons, and of course, our transcontinental runs across America in 2015 and length of the Mississippi River in 2017. Over the years, running Boston together was always in the back of our minds. Shamus had heard me speak about the Boston Marathon for years… the history, qualifying standards, Dick and Rick Hoyt paving the way for duo teams like us, the party atmosphere of the race, and of course, the hills! While Boston was always something we wanted to do, it was never an immediate goal because we knew, per Boston Marathon rules and regulations, that Shamus could not participate until he turned 18.

The years passed and as Shamus neared 18, we knew it was time to run a qualifying time. Duo teams must qualify in the time of the duo runner. For me, a man who would be 46 years old on race day, we needed to run under 3 hours 20 minutes. We had run sub 3:20 in every marathon that we had tried so we felt confident we could succeed.

Initially, we planned to qualify at the Buffalo Marathon, Memorial Day weekend 2023, but our plans were altered when Shamus and Simon’s Odyssey of the Mind team earned a trip to World Finals last year! We had to find a new race before the Sept. 15 registration deadline for Boston. We opted to run the inaugural Sackets Harbor Marathon, on Lake Ontario in Jefferson County. The race directors welcomed us with open arms and were thrilled to have us attempt to qualify at their race. The event, volunteers, scenery, and course were phenomenal. However, for the first time ever in a race, Shamus and I had a chair malfunction. At mile nine, the handlebars snapped, and the back of the chair broke leaving me with nothing to push on except the sharp metal that remained. I typically push with my elbows flexed and my hands at chest height. Instead, I was forced to push the remaining 17 miles bent at the waist pushing at knee-level. While the conditions weren’t ideal, we were still able to qualify for Boston with a time of 2:59.35!  

The company that manufactured the chair had replacement parts to us within 10 days, and we reassembled the chair in time to run the Marine Corps Marathon in October, and then set our sights on Boston in April 2024!

With Shamus being a high school senior, involved in numerous activities at school, and searching for colleges, we didn’t have the opportunity to run together from October through April with the exception of the Christopher Dailey Turkey Trot in Saratoga Springs, and a three-mile shake out run in Orlando, Fla. in February with a borrowed chair when we were there to watch the Olympic Trials Marathon with our fellow ASICS ambassadors. No exaggeration, those were the only two runs we did together between the Marine Corps Marathon and Boston. I knew that wasn’t ideal going into race day. Although I had been running, I wouldn’t say I had been marathon training. I was running four to five days per week and had not run more than 13 miles on any of my long runs all winter long. I was then sidelined for two weeks from February 26 to March 11 in the lead up to the marathon when my doctor instructed me not to run due to some medical concerns. I knew that Boston was going to be a challenge. I felt undertrained to run Boston as an individual, let alone having to push Shamus up the Newton hills.

In addition to less-than-optimal training, our schedule made the logistics for running Boston a little tricky. Shamus and Simon’s Odyssey of the Mind (OM) team competed in the NYS tournament on April 13 in Syracuse. The event took place all day Saturday with the awards ceremony occurring that evening. We stayed for the awards, where their team was recognized for their sixth-place finish and where Shamus was presented with the NYS OM scholarship! We then drove back to Galway late Saturday night, unloaded the OM props, slept fast, and then woke up to load the van with our racing chair and Boston Marathon race-day gear.  

We arrived in Boston just in time to check into our hotel and pick up our racing bibs at the Hynes Convention Center. It was packed and we didn’t stay long. Instead, we strolled around Newberry Street, picked up some bagels for breakfast, and then grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant, brought it up to our room, and settled in.

We got a short night’s sleep before our 4am wake up call. We gathered everything to walk to the accessible buses to take us to Hopkinton. Shay rolled in his wheelchair while I pushed the racing chair. We checked-in and then waited until volunteers were ready to load our racing chair onto the truck. Shortly after, Shamus and I boarded our bus with our fellow duo runners and riders.  

We headed to the start line in Hopkinton with very low expectations as far as pace. Our goal was to simply enjoy the experience. Our race in Sackets Harbor had already qualified 2025 (there is a small window of dates where a marathon can run and qualify you for two years) so we felt no pressure. Having fun was our genuine objective!

The race morning energy was pumping in Hopkinton. We visited with other teams as we prepped in our holding area at St. John the Evangelist Church. Although we were there a couple hours before “go” time, the minutes were ticking by fast as we went through our morning checklist… hydration, nutrition, sunscreen, bibs, pre-race bladder emptying for both of us, getting Shamus at a comfort level of 10/10 in the chair, etc.  

We had a brief prerace interview with our local news affiliate and before we knew it, we were leading the walk of 20 other duo teams to the start line. While I walked, Shamus was recording a podcast “on location” with Ainsley’s Angels. The plan was for him to give his experience as an athlete rider in real time from the most historic of marathons. The recording came out amazing as Shamus described the start and first few miles of the race… it can be found at the “Together, We Shall” podcast, episode 50: youtube.com/watch?v=GSPLVnvyryA.

While Shay recorded, I tried to savor the moment and took some deep breaths. I had told Shamus about the fast downhill start and asked him to remind me to reign it in. I knew the emotions of our first Boston together and the incredible Boston crowd, paired with the steep decline after the start line, could easily lead to destroying my legs in the early miles. I wanted to avoid that at all costs so that Shamus could experience a strong finish on Boylston Street 26 miles later.

When the gun sounded and we were released from our corral, my best laid plan of taking it easy quickly went out the window. I simply leaned on Shamus, and we were flying! Once we were rolling at five minutes per mile pace there was no slowing us down, at least not right away. We settled in a little bit as the course leveled out but went through the 5K under 18 minutes (5:45/mile). It was shortly thereafter that my wife Nichole texted Shamus and said, “Shay, you might want to tell dad to slow down, he’s running sub-6s, save something for Heartbreak Hill.”

Shay read me the text and I knew Nichole was right. I had told myself a million times not to go out too fast and there we were speeding down the hills. While Nichole’s text should have been a wakeup call, it ended up having the opposite effect. When I found out that she was tracking us from school (she’s a teacher), I got a little boost of adrenaline, and we kept right on cruising. We went through 10K in just over 36 minutes, and we were having a blast, both of us soaking in the crowd. Shamus commented how fast the miles were going by. He wasn’t referring to our pace, but instead, to how much fun we were having, and we seemed to be ticking off mile after mile in the blink of an eye.

Shamus had learned of the famed scream tunnel at Wellesley College earlier in the morning, and the college students didn’t disappoint with their exuberance. We high fived as we rolled by and crossed the halfway mark in an hour and twenty minutes. My legs were feeling good, but the Newton hills were looming in the distance.  

As we entered the hills, we finally stuck to our plan and backed off the pace on the uphills. My goal was to avoid cramping at all costs, while also keeping forward momentum and not slowing to a walk. We executed that plan perfectly as I repeated to myself out loud and Shamus echoed “easy on the uphills.” Then we would let it fly on the down hills whenever they presented themselves over the final 10 miles. I leaned hard on Shamus, extended my stride, and we both beamed as the crowd roared as they saw us zooming down the hills. On the uphills the encouragement of the Boston Marathon faithful fans was equally helpful! At one point, Shamus and I were both surprised to hear someone in the crowd shout “There goes that famous father-son duo that ran across America!” as we rolled by. We both laughed in shock that anyone knew who we were. 

As we closed in on mile 20, the real famous runners – the elite women – were catching up to us. Shamus had his phone ready to record as the leaders approached. Just as we started to climb Heartbreak Hill, Shamus saw that Sara Hall, one of our all-time favorites, was striding up on our right. Her presence was just the jolt I needed in my legs to propel us up the most infamous hill in Boston. We were greeted by a sign at the top reading, “You just conquered the Newton Hills.”

We immediately took off on the next downhill. In a phone call after the race with my younger son, Simon, he told me that he was tracking us from his physics class and saw that we had run a 9:06 mile (that was the mile including Heartbreak). It was much slower than the pace we had been running and he was worried my legs were done. Then he said, “I saw your next mile was 6:08, and I figured you guys were completely fine!”

He was right! We sailed through the miles. I kept waiting for the hammer to drop, for my body to hit the proverbial “wall,” but it never happened. Our hydration and nutrition had been perfect. The thousands of miles we had run together over the years had triggered the motor memory in my legs to go on autopilot. 

The crowd kept us smiling from start to finish. As we got ready to make the famous, ‘right on Hereford, left on Boylston,’ we heard the crowd chanting in the distance. It sounded like a crowd at Fenway Park shouting “Let’s Go Red Sox (clap-clap, clap-clap-clap). As we got closer, we realized it wasn’t the Red Sox they were cheering for. Instead, the crowd on both sides of Commonwealth Ave were chanting “Shaun and Shamus” repeatedly. We could not believe what we were hearing! How did all these people know who we were? There was no time to pause and ponder, we hung a right on Hereford, as the crowd went wild. We powered up the hill and took the left onto Boylston as we pushed toward the most famous finish line in marathon running. I glanced at my watch and for the first time in the entire race I said to Shamus, “Shay, we are going to break three hours!”  

A minute or so later, that is exactly what we did, finishing in two hours and 55 minutes – our fastest marathon together, propelled by the boisterous Boston crowd and our own unyielding smiles. Link to WNYT race day footage and interview with anchor Chris Onorato: youtu.be/mgA5dav-kU8.

Shay summed it up best when we hugged just after crossing the finish line. As we cried tears of joy at our surprising finish time, he looked at me and said, “Dad, my smile muscles hurt!” 

Boston… thank you for the 26.2 miles of smiles. We will definitely be back!

Shaun Evans is a physical therapist and the senior VP of programs with Ainsley’s Angels of America. He resides in Galway with his wife, Nichole, and sons Shamus (18) and Simon (16). Shamus Evans is a senior at Galway High School, and plans to attend the University of Albany next year, where he’ll study engineering. You can follow The Evans Family on social media: @power2push.