Among the many greater than 28,000 finishers on the 2025 Boston Marathon, no story stood out fairly like that of Dan Johnson from Port Dover, Ont. Johnson got down to run the race in three hours and 10 minutes on what would have been his son’s ninth birthday. However misfortune for Johnson at kilometre 17 put even ending in jeopardy.
Johnson stepped on a dropped hand-held water bottle, severely injuring his ankle. What adopted was 4 hours of hobbling, hopping, and drawing energy from the fixed reminders of his late son, who died of mind most cancers in July 2024, to by no means quit. With the assistance of a mobility gadget borrowed from an area resident and a paramedic who taped up his ankle, Johnson and his spouse, Jill, started a gradual and decided shuffle towards the end line.
The 42-year-old crossed the end line sixth from final, his ankle severely injured, simply earlier than the 5:30 p.m. cut-off. “It was brutal,” he wrote. “I figured I needed to run 12-minute kilometres to get in, and I made it with a couple of minutes to spare.”
Johnson mentioned he needed to run Boston to honour Luke. “The best way I needed to honour Luke was by way of operating and coaching as arduous as I may, as a result of that’s how Luke performed sports activities,” he informed the Simcoe Reformer. “That’s how he carried himself—whether or not it was sports activities and even writing a letter to his mother.”
He completed in 6:46:25—solely 14 minutes forward of the cut-off, and aspect by aspect with Jill.
Johnson mirrored on the race as a glimpse into the day by day ache and perseverance his son needed to dwell by way of. “Luke by no means stop and fought most cancers in his mind day by day he lived,” he wrote. “He was honoured, and I assume that’s the best way Monday was speculated to go.”
Tears have been shed all through the day—from Johnson, his spouse, and the various spectators who cheered him on from the race’s begin in Hopkinton to the end line in Copley Sq., all drawn to his lime inexperienced ‘Stay Like Luke’ singlet. With each painful step, Johnson knew it was willpower that carried him by way of—not for himself, however for his son, Luke.
