A Hockessin, Delaware man finished his 43rd consecutive Boston Marathon Monday. 73-year-old Doug White ran the race in 5:02:11, although he admits to clocking much faster times in his youth.
White says he never planned to run the marathon for more than four decades, but felt no reason to stop.
He had planned to end his streak on his 40th run of the race, but that was the same year terrorists bombed the finish line. White recalls that incident vividly.
“Of course I was running a long and I got about a half a mile from the finish line and everyone stopped just like an accident on a highway. They’re all standing there. And I said, “What the hell is going on?” And nobody knew. And all you could see was sirens and helicopters and cop cars and fire trucks. And all the phones went dead," White said.
White says he felt emboldened to run the race the year after the attacks. Now, he says he’ll keep running until he can no longer finish the race.
White is one of 60 people who have run the Boston Marathon more than 25 times in a row. Only five other people have run the race more, or as many, times as him.
He was one of 66 people from Delaware to run in the Boston Marathon this year.
