787 Miles To Boston — The Levi Gagne Story
By: Garrett Harnick
April 16, 2018. 26,954 runners descended on the town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and at 8:40am, they were off- and waiting for them some 26.2 miles away was the thing that they have been training tirelessly to cross: the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Among those mobs of athletes was Levi Gagne, a 20 year old college student from Midland, Michigan, who would later go on to be a finisher of this edition of the event.
When Gagne started training, he leaned heavily on his history of running knowledge. Having ran varsity cross country in high school, he knew what he had to do to run the times needed to qualify. The years of experience gained running the cross country circuits all contributed to the mental and physical training required for the longer distances races. In order to run the Boston Marathon, you must first qualify, and Gagne needed to do just that. Training for that qualifying race began in April of 2017, almost a year prior to the Boston. He completed the Charlevoix Marathon in June 2017 with an official time of 3:00:02- good enough to make the big race.
He took a few months off after that race to let his body recover from the stress of the training. In December of 2017, he decided he needed to start running again. Time was passing him by. He dedicated exhausting hours to his craft, most mornings getting up at 4am just to log miles before going off to work at 7am.
Finally, after months of long hours and hundreds of miles ran, the time had arrived to finish what he had started. On Friday, April 13th, the Gagne family piled into their black 2014 Dodge Grand Caravan and embarked on the long journey to Framingham, Massachusetts, where the clan took occupancy in the local Holiday Inn. Located near the Bose corporate headquarters, Gagne made a point to say that it was the nicest looking building he has ever seen in his life.
On the morning of the race, it was pouring rain. Gagne took to Twitter after the race to jokingly suggest the event might as well have been held in a water park.
Through the trials and tribulations over the course of the grueling event, Gagne admits that most of the middle part is a blur. “Sure, some things stick out here and there, but all in all once you get into that zone, everything else just blocks itself out and it all blends together.”
Levi Gagne would finish the 2018 Boston Marathon with a time of 3:03:33, which he finds to be an entertaining number. The experience of the Boston has inspired him to continue to run in marathons across the country, though they might not all be as large as the Boston Marathon. As of November, he is signed up to run the 2019 Chicago Marathon and his training is already underway.
“As much fun as the race was to run, I do have to say the best part was finishing.”
Remember, the thing about running is it gets easier. Everyday it gets a little easier. Except you have to do it every day- that’s the hard part.
