“When I started to come down Comm Ave. after Linden Lane, it was just the coolest experience seeing all my friends and hearing him scream, and it totally got me through the last bit of the marathon,” Murphy said. “So that was totally the hardest part but seeing them just rejuvenated me.”

“I think being a BC student is probably the best way to run the Boston Marathon,” Craycraft said. “There's so many people yelling out on the course, you know, cheering for BC or for the Eagles, and I couldn't be more grateful or more proud to wear the BC jersey while running the course. It’s super special.” 

“I ran a really good half marathon [in Newport], and then a few weeks later, I did the Cambridge Half Marathon with some BC friends, too,” said Flatley. “And so, by that point, I started to feel like I knew that the next step was the marathon.”

“I came to Boston to run the marathon in college, and I just fell in love with the city,” Bush said. “It’s hard to come to Boston as a runner and not just fall in love with the Boston area. I remember having a thought seven years ago of ‘Oh my gosh, I love this place. I want to live here someday.’”

“The general idea of going through a hard time and pushing through it and knowing that with enough hard work, you can hopefully make it out on the other side, definitely helps me with school and job searching,” Fagan said. “It might be tough now, but if you just push through it and keep working, hopefully you can make it through.”