DAVE MCGILLIVRAY

KENZRUNS

When I first met Dave, I was at a charity event for the Joseph Middlemiss Big Heart Foundation. I was walking down a hallway and my friend pointed towards a man in front of us and asked me, "do you know who that is?" I said I didn't, and she told me I was walking behind the race director for the Boston Marathon. She then got his attention and introduced me to him, I asked for a picture, and I let him carry on with his night before I made a fool of myself in front of a Boston running icon.

Before talking to him on the phone, I listened to all the podcasts he had been interviewed in beforehand. I didn't want to ask him questions he had been asked before. We know he started running when he was twelve because he was shorter and wasn't making sports teams. We know he ran the Boston Marathon his first year when he was seventeen and has been running it every year since. We know he loves running, and he loves helping other people achieve their running goals. I wanted to know what it was like to go for a run with him. What does he like to wear? What does he think about? I was surprised to learn that while I'm someone who runs to clear my head and I listen to music to turn off my thoughts, he brings his phone with him to record voice memos and process thoughts or brainstorm ideas.

While he told me he wasn't "the best fashion dude around," he did talk to me about his beliefs around the importance of sneakers and the difference they can make in running. When he ran across America to support the Jimmy Fund in 1978, he brought several pairs of sneakers with him and switched between them throughout segments of the run. He used different sneakers from different brands with different structural designs, and says that each one helped him work different muscles and kept things fresh.

He currently runs in a pair of Hoka sneakers which he admittedly first thought looked bizarre, but now he enjoys the support and cushion that help to eliminate the constant impact on his joints from running. He is a firm believer in spending more money on sneakers as a preventative measure to not spend time and money on recovering from an injury.

One style question I knew I had to ask Dave was about the Boston Athletic Association Celebration Jackets that are designed each year for the runners. Every year the design for the jacket is unveiled the winter before the marathon and every year the colors are different. Sometimes the unicorn jacket is simple blue and gold or yellow to represent the BAA colors, and other years the colors have ranged from neon orange, to teal, to hot pink. I needed to know which was his favorite. He has worked with the Boston Marathon since 1988, so he had quite a few to choose from. As somewhat expected, he likes the simple ones. He isn't looking to draw attention to himself or be flashy or anything like that. He also doesn't have superstitions about wearing them before race day because to him at the end of the day, it’s another race jacket in his closet.

This isn't out of any lack of respect for the race itself. He admits candidly that when he ran the marathon his first year when he was seventeen and didn't finish, he hadn't earned it yet. He hadn't been prepared for what the course could do to him, and he had to admit defeat. He fully understands what it means to people to cross that finish line, but he does not think that any bad luck can be produced by the article of clothing itself.

This led me to my follow-up question about the 2020 Boston Marathon Celebration Jacket.

I knew better than to ask him about the marathon itself and what COVID-19 would do to impact the postponed September 14th date, but I wanted to know his stance on what to do with the jacket IF the marathon was canceled. I purchased my jacket after a Charity Teams event at Marathon Sports when there was a discount for runners, and hung it nicely in my closet waiting for the right to wear it after crossing the finish line. I have never run the marathon before but I have drooled over the jackets in the past and adored any runner who wore one because it meant one thing to me- they had run the race I had only dreamed of running.

I asked Dave if he had any race shirts or jackets that were special to him, and he talked about shirts he had worn for his Run Across America, and the shirts he wore for the World Marathon Challenge, and singlets from past races, but he also told me he doesn't keep all of his runner merchandise. He has run enough races that he just wouldn't get around to wearing everything, so he donates a lot of it. What he has come to realize is that when he does keep "special" shirts, they get put in his drawer and sometimes never come out again until the next time he cleans out his closet. His feelings around wearing the 2020 Celebration Jacket were that if you have the jacket, and you want to wear it, wear it. If you know you put the work into training, or fundraising. or any part of the marathon, you deserve to wear it. The medals are what you earn upon completion of the race, not the merchandise.

My last clothing question for Dave had to do with the new Nike Vaporfly sneakers that I wrote about previously. I wanted to know his opinion on whether or not he thought athletes should get to compete in them. Dave is someone that loves to run because he loves to run. He doesn't get caught up in the little things, and he isn't looking to check each runners shoes at the beginning of every race like airport security. World Athletics has said,

"Starting on April 30, elite runners cannot run in prototype shoes that had not been available for any competitor to buy on the open market for at least four months, and footwear must meet certain design specifications. The sole cannot be thicker than 40 millimeters and there cannot be more than one springlike shank in the sole."

Dave doesn't disagree. He believes as long as the shoes are available to everyone and they follow the guidelines, he doesn't care what people wear. He knows that what makes a runner a great runner is the hours of training and commitment, not a pair of bouncy sneakers.