Dumont native Macala Donnelly has qualified to compete in the Boston Marathon. A 2008 Hampton-Dumont alum, Donnelly qualified for the event by finishing in 3:23:10 at last year’s Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.
With a long history in the sport of running, Donnelly competed in some smaller-scale marathons in the early 2010s. After a stint of knee soreness, she worked back into long distance form to qualify for one of the most prestigious races in the United States.
“I think the biggest thing in my head was that after my second marathon, I had really sore knees,” Donnelly says. “And so I didn’t think that my knees would ever be strong enough to compete again and to sustain that mileage. I just thought, I’m just going to do this for fun. I do love running. I usually listen to podcasts or speakers while I’m running. Even a half hour of it was pretty much my max for a long time. And then as I stayed with a short distance for quite a while, I felt like my knees had got stronger and just my endurance got stronger to start working my way up to a training plan. So it wasn’t like I just went from zero to 100. For quite a while I stuck with low mileage and just got my body ready to start tacking on miles.”
Donnelly on how she strategizes her races.
“First off, knowing that it’s going to hurt no matter how hard I trained, expecting the pain to come is probably the smartest thing I could do, because then I know once it hits, I’m not surprised at the fact that it does hurt. And there are many times where I’m like, oh, it would be nice to quit. And I just don’t. So you just have to keep going. I think breaking the marathon down into smaller chunks is super important. I have the idea that the race doesn’t actually even start until mile 16. And so once I hit mile 16, I’m like, okay, now if I can pick it up a little bit, if I can pass a few people, that seems to make the race go by a little bit faster. So the first 16 miles don’t really count. Just try to like maintain speed, maintain pace, and then try to finish strong.”
Now that she’s back into marathon form, Donnelly hopes to continue competing in major events, and she hopes to be joined by some friends in the future.
“I want to requalify. So my qualification as a 35-year-old woman is 3:30 now because they took it down. This past year they moved all qualifying times down by five minutes. Everybody’s getting faster it seems like. So I want to requalify, and then honestly anything under like 3:15, which would be an eight minute PR, I would be happy with that. Anything under that that would be amazing, but I’ve heard the Boston Marathon has quite the grueling route. It’ll be great. I’m excited and I’m ready. Let’s just hope the weather cooperates and no illnesses. Otherwise, I’m ready to go. I’m excited.”
The 2025 Boston Marathon will be Monday, April 21.
