Training Tweaks That Will Get You to a BQ Boston Marathon 21 years ago, when he was 24, still single (although dating his now wife, Nichole), no kids.
Things were a lot different on September 3, when Evans, now 45, ran the Sackets Harbor Marathon on the shore of Lake Ontario—even though the results were much the same.
This time, Evans pushed his older son, Shamus, 17, who has cerebral palsy that affects his legs, in a racing chair in front of him. Evans’s younger son, Simon, 15, ran in the accompanying half marathon.
Shaun and Shamus finished in 2:59:26, averaging 6:51 per mile pace. They were sixth overall, shattering the Boston Marathon qualifying mark (3:20) that Evans needs for his age group.
To make the day sweeter, Simon finished the half marathon in 1:32:55, finishing 10th, even though he treated it as a training run for his upcoming high school cross-country season.
Shaun and Shamus plan to enter as a duo for Boston in 2024 when registration opens next week. Shamus will be 18 on race day, which is the minimum age for all Boston participants, even riders. For the father and son, it will be their only chance to run Boston together before Shamus graduates from high school and goes to college. He is interested in studying aerospace engineering.
All About 75 Hard Ainsley’s Angels, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build inclusive communities and has donated more than 1,300 racing chairs for running, has a lifetime best of 2:26 from when he was in his 20s.
These days, running is more important as a chance to bond with his sons, even though his performances are still plenty quick. Over the summer, he put in 60 to 70 miles per week in training, rarely running a single mile alone. He always was pushing Shamus up and down the hills near their home in Galway, New York, or running intervals with Simon.
Since 2013, Evans has run only a single race without pushing Shamus. In August, they ran 41:41 (5:58 pace) at the 7-mile Falmouth Road Race.
Evans thought they might be in shape to break 2:50 at Sackets Harbor. But at mile 9 they suffered an equipment malfunction. The support that holds up the aerobars that Evans uses to push the chair snapped in half.
He barely broke stride. Instead, he folded over the support structure and kept going. He pushed the final 17 miles of the race with ragged metal edges of the support digging into his wrists, from a height down near Shamus’s shoulders.
He had no leverage for steering, so when they came to sharp turns on the course, Evans had to run to the front of the chair, grab the fixed front wheel, and drag Shamus around the turn.
The chair, with Shamus in it and Evans’s fluid bottles, weighs about 160 pounds altogether, a load to push uphill, even when the handlebars are working.
“Out of all the things that I thought would go wrong—flat tires, potholes—this was not one of them,” Evans said.
Shamus offered encouragement—“You’re doing a great job, Dad”—as he always does, and they got to the finish line just under the 3-hour mark, a performance reminiscent of those that Elite Marathoner Runs 5:24 Mile Pushing a Stroller used to regularly turn in at Boston. (The Evans pair will face stiff competition there—the winning time in the category at April’s race was 2:53:38, run by Boston Marathon Finish Cutoff Time Is 5:30 p.m, Health - Injuries.)
But that’s not really the point. “Times don’t matter as much,” Evans said. “It was neat to run sub-3 with my son and get him to a Boston Marathon qualifier.”
Sean McQuaid and Cormac Evans is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
