Neil Matin ’99

Anne Stein’84

When racing was shut down by the pandemic, Neil Martin ’99 didn’t stop. He did dozens of 26.2-mile training runs, the equivalent of 57 marathons in a row. That’s one every weekend.

Martin is clinical director of radiation oncology and co-director of the Prostate Cancer Center at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center in Boston. Running was a stress reliever at an incredibly stressful time.

“All of a sudden we had to figure out how to keep seeing patients and keep the staff safe,” he says. “In the early days, it was really emotionally fraught.”

And so began the streak. The first April weekend, Martin took on the Boston Marathon course a bit slower than he wanted, so he decided to aim faster for the next weekend. He would run with a friend or two and soon running 26.2 miles on an early Saturday morning felt normal.

“That state of really concentrating and pushing and working at something is really appealing to me,” explains Martin. “There are periods where you are sort of in flow and it feels effortless, and there are long periods where it’s hard, and you’re telling your body to keep going.”

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