MCGILLIVRAY HONORED

RUNNER’S WORLD

The long-time Boston Marathon director gets the star treatment tonight at Fenway Park for his charity work.

Manny Ramirez may be gone, but another Boston legend will make a triumphant return to Fenway Park tonight. 

Dave McGillivray, the long-time race director of the Boston Marathon, who last year was tapped by Runner's World's as a Hero of Running, will be honored this evening by The Jimmy Fund prior to the Red Sox game against the Texas Rangers.

The tribute comes 30 years after McGillivray ran across the United States raising money for The Jimmy Fund, which supports the fight against cancer in children and adults at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The 3,452-mile run ended when the then 24-year-old took a few laps around Fenway's warning track. Over the past three decades, McGillivray has continued to raise money for The Jimmy Fund and other charities through various long-distance runs, swims, and bicycling pursuits.

"To be honored by the Jimmy Fund means a great deal to me," McGillivray said in a statement. "The Jimmy Fund and the late Ken Coleman (the fund's onetime chairman) gave me a chance to accomplish something that even I didn't know was possible until I actually took those final steps inside Fenway Park. To run across the country was my dream, and to couple that with raising awareness and money that might save the life of a child was a tremendous responsibility which I did not take lightly."

Before being honored at Fenway, McGillivray will run 54 miles, continuing a tradition he started on his 12th birthday: running one mile for each year of his life. McGillivray turns 54 later this month.