Nolan stays among Boston Marathon’s elite company
In 33rd straight run in biggest race in U.S., 58-year-old Collegeville resident bests sub-3:00 goal
Just as he’s done at the same time each of the last 20 years, Collegeville resident James Nolan, 58, headed to Jack’s Barbershop in Royersford. It was six days before the Boston Marathon and final preparations were in order.
“Jack, I’ve done all the work, this sub-three hour really comes down to you,” Nolan said to owner Jack Hill. “You need to make sure it’s aerodynamic and make it just perfect.”
Whatever final trimmings Hill put on Nolan’s hair – along with the hundreds of miles Nolan ran in the three and a half months leading up to the event – did the trick.
Nolan posted a time of 2:58:21, his first sub-three-hour Boston Marathon since 2010. Competing in the 126th running of the most popular marathon in the United States for the 33rd straight year, Nolan’s finish was 2,854th out of 24,829 finishers on April 18.
“This year was a little bit different. It was my 34th Boston and 33rd consecutive,” Nolan said. “I was in really, really good shape, so I was really hoping to break three hours and if things went really well I was hoping to break 2:59. All the stars aligned and it turned out to be a terrific day for me. It was a really hard run for me, but doing a 2:58.21 was my final time and I was very, very ecstatic and very pleased.”
Nolan’s trips to Jack’s Barbershop have gone on for about two decades. His Boston Marathon streak extends long before then into a fourth decade. He’s run the race in five different decades.
He first ran the race in 1987 and took two years off. But after deciding to watch the marathon while up in the Boston-area for a training course in 1989, he decided he would never be a spectator again.
Nolan, who has lived in Collegeville for 30 years, ran again in 1990 and has run in it every year since — participating virtually in 2020 when the race was canceled due to COVID-19 and coming up to Boston in October when the event was delayed in 2021.
“What keeps me coming back is Boston has all that history, 126 years of running the Boston marathon. The crowds ... it doesn’t matter where you’re at on the course, they’re so supportive,” Nolan said.
“With all that history, I’m competing with the world class runners. I’m still running the same course as they are and everybody else. I can’t go out and play with Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordan or LeBron James, picture whoever in whatever sport you admire. You don’t get to do that, but in running you do.”
Originally from Harrison, Ohio, Nolan was a high school runner and later ran in college at Division III Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. He’s logged all his runs since 1979 and recently logged his 95,000th mile.
Nolan doesn’t use headphones while he runs, saying that it’s the time he connects with God.
“I’ve solved so many work problems or personal problems just out there jogging,” Nolan said. “Whether it’s the dead of winter or the middle of the night, just enjoying being out there with myself and God. That’s where it starts.”
Nolan estimates he’s run over 500 road races with about 75 and 50 second-place finishes to show for it.
His trips to Boston have put him in some elite company, joining the Quarter Century Club seven years ago. The group of about 125 active members consists of those who have run in 25 straight Boston Marathons.
Nolan said they get together for a picture each year.
”Twenty-five Boston marathons alone is quite an accomplishment, but it has to be 25 consecutive,” Nolan said. “If you miss a year or whatever, you’re back to zero. That’s what kept me going is, ‘I want to be in that quarter century club.’”
“The last couple years, I’ve had the fastest time, so even though I’m starting to be one of the older guys I’m leading the pack for our quarter century club.”
Nolan said prior to the last two or three years he averaged about 2,500 miles per year. When COVID hit and Nolan began working from home in 2020, he started to run more.
He ran a sub-three hour marathon at the Phoenixville Marathon
(2:56) in the Fall of 2020, giving him a sub-three-hour time for the first time in seven years, which put him in the five-decade club — a list of runners who have accomplished the feat in at least five different decades.
“It’s a pretty neat accomplishment to be in that group,” Nolan said.
Knowing he had it within himself, he set the goal to accomplish the feat again in Boston — something he last did in 2010 when he ran 2:59.23.
Last year, Nolan’s mileage total was 4,256. (An avid fan of the Reds’ ‘Big Red Machine’ growing up outside Cincinnati in the 1970s, he decided to stop at the same number of Pete Rose’s career hits).
Nolan retired in February 2021 and was able to train even more. He went out for a run one day and realized he didn’t have to come home, so he added three, four, five miles more.
“It’s like anything else. It’s harder when you get older obviously,” Nolan said. “You’ve got some physical limitations and capabilities and all that kinds of stuff, but with me I had to really train harder.
“It’s just having to work a lot harder and train a lot harder. … Now that I’m retired I can just sleep and run, and go to baseball games, and really enjoy what I like to enjoy.”
Nolan ran 100 miles for 24 straight weeks last year before taking a break in December. He began preparation for Boston in January.
It had been quite a while since Nolan put pressure on himself to achieve a certain time or finish. He has six career Top 100 finishes with his best coming in 1995 when he finished 52nd (2:28.37).
He compared this year’s race
to 1994 and 1995 where he didn’t get to enjoy it like usual, but it was worth it when he saw his final time.
“I really didn’t get to enjoy it this year until after the race, after my accomplishments because I was so determined to try and break three hours,” Nolan said. “I knew I would be very, very happy and pleased after the race, which I was, but I have to admit it was tough out there. It was mentally and physically tough, but I was very pleased and happy with my run.”
Nolan’s favorite memory of the Boston Marathon is when he ran it alongside his daughter Alison Nolan Sukolsky in 2018. She ran her 20th consecutive Boston Marathon this year, finishing with a time of 2:53:13. A near Olympic Trials qualifier in 2019, she speeded by her father long ago.
The joy for running was passed down to his other children as well. Kimberley Nolan was a cross country runner at Perkiomen Valley and Ursinus College and now coaches cross country at Devon Prep. Less than a week after running the Boston Marathon, Nolan ran the final 13.1 miles of the Delaware Coastal Marathon with his son David.
The longest current streak for consecutive Boston marathons is 54 and the longest gap between sub-three-hour marathons is 44 years, 148 days — neither of which Nolan has his eyes on.
However, he does have at least one more milestone he’d like to reach.
“A couple more years, I’ll hit 100,000,” Nolan said. “I told my wife Debbie, ‘I want to have a party for that.’ 100,000 miles, most people start to think they need a new car. That would be a really fun big number to hit.”