dailyloe.com – The 130th Boston Marathon will feature 30,000 athletes on Monday. The field includes many familiar names from various fields. They will run the 26.2-mile course from Hopkinton to Boston. This list tracks some of the notable participants.
Chelsea Clinton is running the Boston Marathon for the first time. She is 46 years old and the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Clinton is an author, advocate, and vice chair of the Clinton Foundation. She qualified for Boston at last year’s New York City Marathon.
Her qualifying time in New York was 3:44:22. This was 38 seconds under the required time for her age group. The Marathon Handbook provided this qualifying information. Clinton has run several other marathons in the past.
Former Bruins captain Zdeno Chara is running for the third time. The 49-year-old NHL Hall of Famer first ran Boston in 2023. That event was also his first ever marathon. He ran the race again the following year in 2024.
Chara has since run marathons across the world. He recently became a World Marathon Major Six Star finisher. This year he runs for the Thomas E. Smith Foundation. The foundation advances care for people affected by paralysis.
Astronaut Suni Williams is a Needham native and longtime runner. The 60-year-old fell in love with the marathon as a child. She has run it multiple times before, including unofficially at age 17. She also ran a marathon on a treadmill aboard the International Space Station.
Williams became the first human to complete a marathon in orbit. She is a former Navy captain and recently retired from NASA. Her space mission last year unexpectedly stretched from weeks into months. She now lives in rural Maine.
Williams recently spoke with The Boston Globe about the race. “I’m a little slow, but I feel good and am happy to get out there to try it,” she said with a laugh. She will run from Hopkinton to Boston over a year after her mission.
Chris Herren is also running the marathon this year. The 50-year-old is a Fall River native and former basketball star. His heroin addiction derailed his career with the Boston Celtics. He is running with his wife Heather.
They are running to honor 15 years of their addiction recovery nonprofit. The Herren Project was founded in 2011 after Herren got sober. The organization provides support for people struggling with addiction. Their participation highlights the marathon’s charitable aspects.
