DAVE MCGILLIVRAY
Dave McGillivray is a peanut-sized human, with a giant-sized heart.
Brobdingnagian.
Gigantic.
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
–Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain
Couldn’t have said it better.
Dave McGillivray and I were born a month apart in 1954.
We graduated high school–not together–in 1972, and college–not together–in 1976.
We both are 5’4” tall.
(To those who know me, today…alright, I may have shrunk an inch or so. Whatever…).
I fashioned myself, and still do, as an athlete of modest repute, at best.
Perhaps I’m overrating myself.
There is no overrating Dave McGillivray.
Not in any form or fashion.
NO.
When BAA race director Dave McGillivray, 67, ran his first Boston Marathon in 1972, his grandfather was waiting for him at Mile 24 in Brookline.
He kept waiting.
The 17-year-old teen had no clue.
Had no idea what he was doing.
He wasn’t even wearing socks that day, and dropped out at Mile 20.
At the base of Heartbreak Hill.
An ambulance ride to Newton-Wellesley Hospital: care/hydration and all the rest.
Then a phone call to his grandfather, at around 9.
“I quit,” he said to grandpappy.
‘Not quite,’ responded the elder.
“You didn’t quit, you learned not to set reckless goals.”
They made a deal.
“Train for it, and I’ll be waiting next year,” said Grandpa Eaton.
When his grandfather passed away two months later, McGillivray decided to run the following year in his memory.
But he got sick the day before the race.
After 5 miles he was tired.
And at Mile 21, his tires blew again.
When he looked around, he saw that he was directly across from Evergreen Cemetery, his grandfather’s final resting place.
Fortuitous.
“He kept his end of the deal and I’ve got to keep my end of the deal,” McGillivray recalled.
He got up and did what he described as the “survivor’s shuffle,” ambling across the finish line in 4 hours and 30 minutes.
Right then and there, Dave McGillivray promised himself that he would run the race every year, for the rest of his natural life.
The 2022 Boston Marathon (04/18) was his 50th.
Simply the cherry on the present-day sundae.
Check out the man’s history.
In 1978, McGillivray ran across the United States, from Medford, Oregon to his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
Over the course of eighty days, he ran a distance of 3,452 miles, averaging 42 miles a day.
He crowned his trans-America trek by running into Fenway Park.
His herculean effort raised money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
This was just the beginning.
Consider this:
1980:
–His Wrentham State School 24-Hour Run traversed 120 miles in 24 hours through 31 communities in southeastern Massachusetts, ending in Foxboro Stadium at halftime of a New England Patriots game.
The event, which raised more than $10,000 for persons with disabilities, benefited the Wrentham Developmental Center;
–McGillivray ran the East Coast Run from Winter Haven, FL. to Boston, MA., to again benefit the Jimmy Fund.
He ran 1,520 miles, joined by Robert Hall, a pioneer of wheelchair marathoning. While in Washington, D.C., the duo met with President Jimmy Carter at the White House;
–He entered his first Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, finishing 14th in the competition. He became the 30th person ever to have completed an Ironman, an individual endurance event consisting of 3 back-to-back distance events: a 2.4 mile rough, open ocean water swim, followed by a112-mile bike race and finishing up with a 26.2-mile marathon run.
McGillivray would go on to complete 8 more Hawaii Ironmans over his career.
1981:
–He ran in the Empire State Building Run-Up, an 86-story, 1,575-step event. He placed 10th overall, in a time of 13:27;
–He ran the Boston Marathon in 3:14 blindfolded, and with two guides to raise $10,000 for the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton, MA.;
–In the annual New England Run, he triathloned 1,522 miles through the six New England states, raising $55,000 for the Jimmy Fund;
–McGillivray formed the first sanctioned running club inside a maximum security corrections facility, Walpole State Prison in MA.
He conducted and participated in numerous distance races held within the prison yard, including competing in–and winning–a full 26.2 mile Marathon against inmates.
It never got old for him and it never ends for him.
Like a marathon, a triathlon or any test of will.
Along with an undying, relentless yearning–a desire–to give back to others.
Those ill, or less fortunate.
1983:
–The Jimmy Fund 24-Hour Swim;
–The Merrimack College (his alma mater) New England Bike Ride, cycling more than 1,000 miles through New England in 14 days to raise money for a college scholarship fund…
In 1986, McGillivray biked again for 24 consecutive hours.
This time, it was around a five-loop course in Medford, MA. while simultaneously directing the annual Bay State Triathlon, held right there.
He covered a total of 385 miles.
Again, for the Jimmy Fund…
In 1989, he founded The Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk.
Each year nearly 10,000 walkers move along the famed course, generating about $5 million a year for the Jimmy Fund.
There’s more–much more–but you get the point.
If not…
In February 2018, he completed the World Marathon Challenge.
7 Marathons on 7 continents in 7 days…
Charity.
Discipline.
Toughness.
Strength.
Kindness.
Heart…
I don’t know Dave McGillivray.
It would be my pleasure, of course.
The question to me, is this.
How could one do better?
Or more?
Anywhere, or at any time?
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in April 2022.]
