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A tribute to Mary Jablonski, a dedicated mother preparing for the 130th Boston Marathon, highlights her excitement and the challenges of race day preparations.
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The hardest part of getting my Mom ready for the 130th Boston Marathon was untangling the four safety pins she needed to pin her race number to her shirt. I spent at least five minutes figuring out that Rubik’s Cube on Monday, April 20, as we rode the subway to Boston Common.
We had no problem finding the buses that took runners to the starting line in Hopkinton, Mass. Everywhere you looked, runners wearing blue and yellow Boston Marathon jackets were heading in the same direction. Following the crowd took us to the right place.
At this point, my mom, Mary Jablonski — or Mary Leary, for those who remember her from the Alter High School class of 1971 — was more worried about what to wear than about the 26.2 miles of running she faced that day.
Did she need two layers on top? Would she be too hot or too cold?
These are important questions for runners.
Thirty-seven years earlier, Mom didn’t have my help on race day in Boston. I was 11 in 1989 when she first competed in America’s most famous marathon. She was 35 then. She’s 72 now — and still going strong.
“Haven’t changed at all,” she told fellow runners on the subway. “Ha ha.”
I could have written about Mom after the race in April. Instead, I saved the tribute for Mother’s Day.
For the second time in four years, the Dayton Daily News gave me the space for a gift that trumps the chocolate and flowers I could have bought her — and is much cheaper. In fact, I’m getting paid to write this.
Three years ago, Mom qualified for the Boston Marathon with a time of 4 hours, 10 minutes, 28.55 seconds at the London Marathon in Madison County. She planned to race in Boston the following year but battled injuries in the months leading up to the event and withdrew.
In April 2025, Mom returned to the London Marathon and posted a time of 4:19:57.1, easily beating the qualifying time of 4:50 for women in the 70-74 age group.
This time, Mom survived the next 12 months without major injury. She suffered plenty of minor ones, though, including a boxer’s fracture in her hand after a fall about a week before the Boston Marathon. She wore a bulky splint that my dad, Dr. Jeff Jablonski, also a 1971 Alter grad, removed on the morning of the race.
As we waited at a coffee shop in downtown Boston for her turn to board the buses, I interviewed Mom.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“I’m nervous because of the logistics,” she said, “and because I have to wait a long time after we get to the starting area. They’ve got the fast people first and the slow people toward the end.”
Her bus departed at 8 a.m. She didn’t begin running until 11.
“I can’t wait to start running,” she said.
Mom’s start in running, in 1979, came relatively late. She was 26. I was 2.
Who knows what she would have accomplished as a younger runner if girls sports had exploded in popularity a bit earlier? The Ohio High School Athletic Association sponsored its first state cross country championship meet for girls in 1978, seven years after my mom graduated from Alter.
Mary Jablonski, also known as Mary Leary, is a participant in the 130th Boston Marathon, celebrated for her dedication as a mother and runner.
Mary Jablonski faced challenges such as untangling safety pins for her race number and deciding what to wear for the marathon.
The 130th Boston Marathon took place on April 20, 2023.
The Boston Marathon is one of the most prestigious marathons in the world, attracting runners from various backgrounds and showcasing their dedication to the sport.
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Mom’s career peaked in the late 1980s. At 36 in 1989, she won the Turkey Trot in Miamisburg in 30 minutes, 36 seconds. That was a pace of just over six minutes per mile over the 8-kilometer course.
Earlier that same year, Mom ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 3:42:58. She qualified with a time of 3:30 in the Columbus Marathon in 1988.
Mom dragged her four kids to many races. All of us eventually became runners in some form. Now most of her 13 grandkids are runners.
I’ve done every sort of race — from the Turkey Trot to the full Ironman in Louisville — over the years. Mom’s running career served as an inspiration every time.
Mom didn’t have to drag me to Boston. I waited until I was confident she would be healthy enough to run and booked my trip.
My dad and I experienced the race by walking a large chunk of the course. After getting Mom to the bus, we hiked two miles to Fenway Park and hopped on a commuter train to Natick. Then we walked 3½ miles to Framingham, passing many residents holding marathon parties in their front yards.
We saw my mom for the first time around the 6-mile mark. I used the same camera I carry with me to every Dayton Flyers basketball game to capture images of her on the course.
Then we returned to the train to head back toward Boston. We got off in Wellesley and spotted mom again before she entered the famous Scream Tunnel, where Wellesley College students create the loudest section on the course.
“They beat it all,” my mom said later.
Spectators cheered runners the whole way. There were only a few segments of the course we walked without fans. Of course, they can only do so much.
“I do a lot of self-talk in my brain,” Mom said. “Toward the end, in the last four miles, I was actually talking out loud, just saying, ‘Come on, you can do it.’”
The hills provided the biggest test for Mom. My parents now live in German Village in Columbus. She had to search for elevation challenges there. It was hard to prepare for Heartbreak Hill in Newton. That’s a 0.4-mile stretch with an 88-foot vertical ascent.
“There were more than one Heartbreak Hill,” Mom said. “At least, that’s the way it felt. Heartbreak seemed very long. It was steep. But the downhills were wonderful.”
Dad and I tried to catch her at the finish line, but the crowds prevented us. She finished with a smile as the images I later bought from MarathonFoto.com showed. First, she had one final challenge. She stopped running with two-tenths of a mile remaining because of a charley horse cramp in her calf.
Fellow runners inspired Mom along the way. She saw amputees and blind runners competing.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “That made me think, ‘What am I complaining about?’”
Mom’s final time was 4:46:49. She finished 44th out of 81 runners in her age group. Her dream time was 4:10. She hoped for 4:19. Her last goal was just to finish, which she achieved.
Among the top local finishers on the men’s side were: Ethan Knemeyer, 22, of Yellow Springs (2:27:53); Thomas Guidotti, 26, of Bellbrook (2:28:56); and Sam Duncan, 24, of Centerville (2:29:14).
The top area women finishers were: Lindsay Babish, 43, of Xenia (3:04:17); Jessica Jones, 38, of Hamilton (3:04:44); and Alicia Neumeier, 24, of Bellbrook (3:06:47).
This was Mom’s last marathon. She’s sure of that. She will continue to race at shorter distances.
Mom has covered many miles since her days with the Alter Lancerettes, and she has many more miles in her, even if they’re not in Boston.
I hope to find more excuses to write about her on Mother’s Day and that all the moms reading this don’t feel shortchanged by the chocolate and flowers they received.
Happy Mother’s Day to all.
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