By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
BOSTON (17-Apr) — For the approximately 30,000 athletes who will run the 130th Boston Marathon presented by Bank of America on Monday, finishing the race will be one of their life’s most significant accomplishments and create vivid memories which will last a lifetime.
But for Australia’s Lisa Weightman, a four-time Olympic marathoner who will compete in the professional women’s division, crossing the finish line will have truly historic significance. The 47 year-old will become the first athlete to finish all seven commercial races of the Abbott World Marathon Majors plus the marathons held at the world’s three biggest athletics championships: Olympic Games, World Athletics Championships, and Commonwealth Games. Moreover, she will have done it competing in the elite fields of all of the commercial events while maintaining a full-time career outside of athletics (she is an executive manager at a major bank).
Two other women, Deena Kastor of the United States and Adriana Aparecida Da Silva of Brazil, have run all seven commercial races of the Majors plus the Olympic Games and World Athletics Championships marathons, although Da Silva ran Sydney in 2024 before it was part of the Majors and Kastor did Tokyo and Sydney more than a decade after her elite career was over.
Weightman, who is joined in Boston with her husband Lachlan McArthur and their son Peter, had hoped to run here much sooner, but with such a busy life things never lined-up for her until this year. She is in her 17th season as an elite marathoner which began with the London Marathon in 2008.
“I had an opportunity to run the year of the bombing (2013), and I didn’t take the offer at the time,” Weightman told Race Results Weekly in an exclusive interview here today. “I ran closer to home (in Osaka, Japan) because the travel was a little easier on us from Australia. Ever since then I’ve really wanted to run. It’s the most iconic. Everyone at home says when you run Boston it’s like a party; everyone is out on the street celebrating such an historic event.”
Running the commercial marathons of the Majors is critical for athletes looking to maximize the income they earn from racing, especially for those who also hope to run in the major championships where they have the privilege of wearing the colors of their country but typically don’t earn prize money and never receive appearance fees. Weightman has always valued being on national teams, and has represented Australia at international championships marathons on eight occasions. She is a two-time Commonwealth Games marathon medalist (bronze in 2010 and silver in 2018); ran in the Olympic Marathons in Beijing in 2008 (33rd place), London in 2012 (16th), Rio De Janeiro in 2016 (31st), and Tokyo/Sapporo in 2021 (26th); and ran the World Athletics Championships marathons in 2009 (17th place) and 2023 (16th). She also qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics by running a personal best 2:23:15 at age 44, but was not selected by Australian Athletics, a snub that still stings.
While she completed the Majors marathons in Berlin (2022 and 2024), Chicago (2017 and 2019), London (2008 and 2017), New York (2018), Sydney (2025), and Tokyo (2023), Weightman thought often about competing in Boston. Yet getting here kept slipping her grasp.
“We talked about it often,” said Weightman, who is represented by Derek Froude at Posso Sports. “We were thinking about coming last year as well, but didn’t get an offer last year. So, to get an offer this year is no hesitation. Like, we’re there!”
Weightman ran three marathons in 2025, the last in Hangzhou, China, in November where she ran 2:31:57. She said that she’s had plenty of time to recover and build for Boston after overcoming a hamstring injury.
“I spent most of last year injured,” Weightman admitted. “At the end of 2024 I tore my hamstring in a race in China. I finished, because I really wanted to finish and experience the event, but it took quite a long time to recover from that, and then I re-injured it in the early part of last year.”
Weightman ran the Sydney Marathon last August and finished ninth in 2:29:34. It was the inaugural edition of that event as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, and Weightman did not want to miss the opportunity to run a Major on home soil (she and her family live in a Melbourne suburb).
“I really wanted to have the opportunity to run Sydney and experience the hills,” she said. “You never want to knock back the opportunity to run a World Major in your home country. I was really proud of that performance.”
Like here in Boston, Sydney’s course is hilly. After running that race she was more determined than ever to get here.
“I loved the downhill at the end of Sydney,” Weightman recounted. “Boston is so historical with the ups and downs. Anything can happen on a course like Boston. Certainly, there is a little fire in me to want to be here and the opportunity to get the Six Star medal (which is presented to runners who have finished the five original races of the Majors plus Tokyo which was added in 2013). It will be pretty emotional to cross the line and have that opportunity here.”
Forecasters are calling for cold conditions on Monday, with wake-up temperatures just above freezing and a WNW 12 mph (19 kph) wind. Weightman is not worried about the cold.
“I think I’m ready for any condition, really,” said the 1:08:48 half-marathoner. “I have the benefit of when I qualified for Paris (Olympics) in Osaka in 2023 and 2024 the conditions were like 5 degrees (Celsius) and the conditions were cold and wet. Some of the athletes got hypothermia (in 2024) and I ran really strong and got on the podium that year. I’ve got lots of good, positive memories from harder days.”
Weightman has little to prove here in Boston. She is the oldest athlete in the pro field –one of seven women in the pro division who are at least 40 years-old– and does not have the speed to run with the lead pack (those women will likely be targeting a sub-2:20 finish time). Nonetheless, she hopes to be as competitive as possible. With decades of experience under her belt, she will have wisdom on her side even if she is a Boston rookie.
“To think now I’m 47 and having the opportunity to be in the pro field at the Boston Marathon is like, pretty surreal and amazing,” Weightman marveled. She continued: “I think I just want to run strong. It’s hard to know what times you can run on a course like this, and because it’s my first time here I don’t have any historical data to draw on. But I think just running strong, feeling strong through that latter part. Everybody who has run it at all levels says the same thing: take care at the start because it’s the last 10-K that gets hard if you push too early. I’m excited for the unknown.”
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Kenyan Geoffrey Mutai’s Boston Marathon course record of 2:03:02, set in 2011, is the oldest course record in the Abbott World Marathon Majors, and it’s remarkable that it hasn’t been broken, especially since the dawn of the supershoe period in 2016. Athletes and coaches today agreed that although the record could go on Monday with cold temperatures and a potential tailwind, athletes simply aren’t focused on it.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Italian coach Claudio Berardelli, who coaches Kenyan Benson Kipruto who won here in 2021 when the race was held in October due to the COVID pandemic. “We just race.”
PHOTOS: Lisa Weightman in Boston in advance of the 2026 Boston Marathon (photos by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
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RACE RESULTS WEEKLY is sponsored by RunCzech, organizers of the Prague Marathon and a series of iconic running events, including the Prague Half Marathon, part of the SuperHalfs, and Italy’s fastest half marathon, the Napoli City Half Marathon. Learn more at runczech.com.
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