In honor of “Marathon Monday” aka race day for the legendary Boston Marathon, we put together a collection of some of our favorite interviews from the past four years of our Breakfast with Bob: Boston Edition. Looking forward to the next time we can all get together in Boston, in the meantime, enjoy these chats:

 

2014 Boston Marathon Champion: Meb Keflezighi

From 2018: Meb took home the silver medal in the marathon at the 2004 Olympics in Athens and he came back from a career threatening injury to win the 2009 New York City Marathon. Meb is also the 2014 Boston Marathon Champion. His win in Boston, which came one year after the bombings, is considered one of the greatest ever wins ever by an American marathoner.

 

2018 Boston Marathon Champion Des Linden and Josh Cox

From 2016: Olympian Des Linden and her agent Josh Cox joined us at the race expo. We chatted with Des about her races here at Boston and what it feels like to be headed back to the Olympics for the second time.

 

2015 Boston Marathon Champion Caroline Rotich and Coach Ryan Bolton

From 2017: The 2015 Boston Marathon champion Caroline Rotich and her coach, Olympic triathlete Ryan Bolton talked about Caroline’s road back to the starting line after dealing with injury. Ryan discussed the importance of patience in recovering from an injury, and shared how they used cross training, including mountain biking, during Caroline’s recovery. Ryan talked about what he has learned working with elite runners, and the differences between American and East African runners.

 

Tim Don

From 2018: Tim Don is a three-time Olympian in the sport of triathlon representing Britain, a four- time ITU World Champion and in 2017 he recorded the fastest-ever Ironman Triathlon time with a 7:40:23 at Ironman Brazil. Last October, three days before the Ironman World Championship, Don was hit by a car while on his bike and suffered a broken neck. The Boston Marathon will be his first race back since breaking his neck.

 

Lionel Sanders and mom Becky

From 2017: After knowing so much about Lionel and his background, we got to meet his incredible mom Becky today, who is running the Boston Marathon on Monday, her 5th Boston. It was great to hear Lionel’s story from her perspective. We learned that Becky is quite an athlete herself, an accomplished triathlete, who has finished Ironman Mt Tremblant, and will be racing at the 70.3 Worlds in Chattanooga, along with Lionel. Becky’s ultimate goal? The Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Lionel told us he is waiting to swim to the coffee boat until his mom qualifies for Kona, and they can swim out together! Before then, Lionel, who qualified in Kona, and his mom, who has a PR of 3:30, will get to enjoy running the Boston Marathon on Monday.

 

Ryan Hall

From 2018: Ryan Hall holds the American Record for the half marathon with a 59:43, he is the only American to go sub 2:05 for the marathon (2:04:58 at the 2011 Boston Marathon) and is a two-time Olympian in the marathon.

 

Deena Kastor

From 2019: Deena is one of the true legends of American running and still holds US records for the marathon (2:19:36), the 15K (47:15) and the 8K (24:36). She started running at the age of 11 and took home the Olympic bronze medal in 2004 in Athens, won the 2005 Chicago Marathon, and the 2006 London Marathon. Deena shared some of her favorite memories from her incredible career, and talked about the role Coach Joe Vigil played in helping her become a world-class runner.

 

Dave McGillivray

From 2017: This will be Boston Marathon race director Dave McGillivray’s 45th consecutive time running the Boston Marathon. Now that Dave is race director, he waits until the final finisher, and then heads back out to Hopkinton to run the course at night. For this obvious fan of endurance sports, we chatted about one of Dave’s earliest endurance events, as one of the 108 Ironman Hawaii competitors on Oahu in 1980. Dave talked about how the Boston Marathon has stayed the same over the years, as well as how it has changed; including everything they went through after 2013, which in many ways felt like starting from scratch.

 

Mirna Valerio

From 2018: Mirna Valerio is known as ‘The Mirnavator’ and her message is that running is for anyone and everyone.

 

Scott Jurek

From 2019: Ultrarunning legend Scott Jurek is the seven-time winner of the Western States 100, the two-time winner of The Badwater Ultramarathon and a New York Times Best Selling author. Scott sat down with me for a chat reflecting on his incredible career, how ultrarunning has evolved over the years, and all the ways ultrarunning is helping to bring people together and spread positivity. We also talked about Scott’s experience running the Appalachian Trail, which he wrote about in his book, North.

 

Watch more interviews from Boston here