Monday will bring us the 130th Boston Marathon, and this year, around 30,000 runners will hit Boylston Street. Recently, the Boston Athletic Association has made some changes: They altered the waves from four to six and have expanded the race’s nonbinary division. But one constant in this race is that every year, a number of celebrities and other notables participate.
Below, the icons, legends, and reality TV stars to look out for this year.
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Bryan Arenales
His relationship with Amaya didn’t exactly go the distance, but Love Island USA season 7 winner Bryan Arenales is about to prove he has endurance in at least one area of his life. It’s not his first marathon; he spoke about his passion for running on the show and ran the Chicago Marathon and New York City Marathon last year. But since Arenales grew up in the Boston area, this race is likely a special one for him.
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Amby Burfoot
Now 79, Burfoot is a running legend (and a former editor-in-chief of this very publication!). He won the Boston Marathon in 1968 and has continued running it regularly ever since, along with other races like Connecticut’s Five Mile Manchester Road Race, which he ran every year for fifty years. Writing about that streak and how he’s cultivated a lifetime of running for Runner’s World in 2012, Burfoot wrote, “Running is easy: Put one foot in front of the other. Staying motivated to run requires much more. It takes thinking and planning. It takes believing in yourself and the value of your workout time. It takes a powerful web of attitudes and practices that make your daily exercise as regular as, you know, brushing your teeth.”
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Zdeno Chara
One of the most iconic—and tallest, at 6’9”—Boston Bruins to ever hit the ice, Slovakian-born Zdeno Chara entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in January. He’s continuing the successful streak with the Boston Marathon, but he’s no first-timer; he first ran it in 2023, and as he told Runner’s World in 2024, “Running the Boston Marathon stands out as an unparalleled experience. Boston isn’t just any city for me—it’s home.”
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Chelsea Clinton
The former First Daughter ran her first NYC Marathon in 2021, and as she told Runner’s World afterward, she’s been a regular runner since her time at Stanford more than 20 years ago. She hit her qualifying time for the Boston Marathon when she ran 3:44:22 at the NYC Marathon last year.
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Jeff DaRosa
Another Boston legend, Dropkick Murphys multi-instrumentalist Jeff DaRosa, 43, is running his first Boston Marathon this year. As he told Boston.com, running has become a grounding daily ritual that supports his sobriety. “It’s been a life changer for me—the discipline I so badly craved,” he said.
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Laura Green
Boston-based comedian and runner Laura Green, known on Instagram as @lauramcgreen, has run the Boston Marathon several times. She told Runner’s World in 2024 that her comedy has helped cement her longevity as a runner: “[Running] is a lifelong sport, and I want people to be out there for as long as their bodies will let them and enjoy it,” she said. “If you take it too seriously, that lifespan is shorter.”
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Chris Herren
Massachusetts-born Chris Herren played as a guard for the Boston Celtics for one year, from 2000 to 2001, while struggling with substance abuse. He became sober in 2008 and has shared his story in books and in his work as a motivational speaker, even producing a documentary with ESPN, Unguarded, about his experiences. Herren and his wife, Heather, are running the Boston Marathon to Support Herren Project, their addiction prevention and support foundation. As they shared on the fundraising page, “For us, running the Boston Marathon together isn’t about finishing fast. It’s about finishing together. It’s a full circle moment for both of us—a celebration of healing, love, and the life we’ve worked so hard to reclaim. It’s also about every person still struggling and every family grieving the loss of a loved one.”
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Kristine Lilly
Three-time Olympic medalist and four-time All-American soccer player Kristine Lilly is the only person to have played in five FIFA Women’s World Cups (two of which she won). Now, she’s trading cleats for running shoes, and will run toward Boylston Street on Monday.
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Des Linden
Olympian, ultramarathoner, and 2018 Boston Marathon winner Des Linden is once again running the Boston Marathon, less than a month after finishing the Marathon des Sables in third place. Last year, she publicly announced that her twelfth Boston Marathon would be her last and that she was retiring from professional marathoning—so maybe this year, she’s just running the Boston Marathon casually? As she told Runner’s World at the time, “It’s not retirement, it’s just moving on to something a little bit different.”
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Suni Williams
Last year, Suni Williams officially retired after 27 years and three missions as a NASA astronaut. In 2007, she became the first person to run a marathon in space, logging 26.2 miles on a treadmill while she was onboard the space station, according to NBC Boston.
Katja Vujić is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, The Cut, Allure, Architectural Digest, The Boston Globe Magazine, and more. You can find more of her work on her website.
