Unwilling to let Hurricane Sandy wash away months of training and fundraising, a North End resident who was set to run in the cancelled ING New York City Marathon made the race go on here in Boston – it was just a few thousand people short.
“I committed to a lot of people that I would run a marathon. I wanted to be able to say at the end of the day that I fulfilled my commitment,” P.J. Driscoll told Metro today, hours after his 26-mile solo-run.
The 2009 Boston College alum started training for the marathon on July 1, and has since raised about $3,000 for the Pat Tillman Foundation, an organization that gives scholarships to veterans and their families.
So he ran The Boston Marathon route alone – for the most part. A few family members and friends jumped in at times, while others surprised him along the way, offering unexpected but welcome support.
“My friend (Thomas O’Donnell) coordinated a bunch of people to come. That was kind of the coolest part. It actually made a big difference because I pretty much planned on doing this alone.”
Driscoll made the trek down for the marathon last week, and got news that it was cancelled while at a New York City bar.
“I think they made right decision about marathon – it just should have been made earlier,” he said.
The idea of running a marathon in a city that was so obviously devastated by the storm gave him the chills anyway, so it was no problem for him to head back to the Hub to do the run.
“I don’t know if guilt is the right word, but there was something definitely unsettling about starting the race that close to something that was so horrible. In the back of my mind, I knew that if I hadn’t gone to New York, I was going to run on my own anyway.”
