FACT SHEET: INAUGURAL FENWAY PARK MARATHON
WHAT: Inaugural Fenway Park Marathon managed by DMSE Sports to benefit the Red Sox Foundation, believed to be the first marathon ever held on the field and totally within a major league ballpark.
WHEN: 5 p.m., Sept. 15, 2017
REGISTRATION: The race, which filled in less than two weeks, is limited to 50 entrants who will raise a minimum of $5,000 in exchange for a bib to benefit the Red Sox Foundation, the official charity of the Boston Red Sox that primarily focuses on youth programming and cancer research. More information is available at redsoxfoundation.org/marathon.
COURSE: The 26.2-mile course inside the storied ballpark will loop around the perimeter of the outfield warning track 114 times. The course will be certified and the 375-meter laps will be monitored electronically.
WHO: Dave McGillivray, the director of the race who also directs the Boston Marathon, will be one of the 50 runners in the field. Also running are two well-known endurance runners – Becca Pizzi from Belmont, Mass., who won the 2016 World Marathon Challenge (WMC) and Michael Wardian from Arlington, Va., who won the 2017 World Marathon Challenge, which consists of running 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 different continents. McGillivray is an entrant himself in the 2018 WMC.
QUOTES: “It’s wonderful that we’ve had this kind of immediate, positive response,” said McGillivray, a lifelong Red Sox fan who has run into Fenway Park numerous times to finish various epic events, including two cross-country runs and one East Coast run for charity.
“As a die-hard Red Sox fan and as a young boy growing up in the area, I dreamed of playing second base in Fenway Park,” he said. “Although that never happened, I substituted running into Fenway Park for playing in Fenway Park. So, after years of trying, now the day has come when I, and 49 others, get to run in and around Fenway Park, and around and around, 114 times. For me, this gives new meaning to an ‘inside the park home run.’ “
BACKGROUND: McGillivray and his DMSE Sports have familiarity with incorporating Fenway Park into running events. DMSE presently directs the Run to Home Base 9K Road Race, which starts on Yawkey Way and finishes on the warning track by the Green Monster. The company also helps to manage the B.A.A. Half Marathon, which once ran in, around and out of Fenway Park. McGillivray’s previous runs inside Fenway Park include:
1978 – finishes 3,452-mile cross country run from Medford, Ore. to Medford, Mass. for the Jimmy Fund (August 29, 1978)
1980 – finishes an East Coast Run for the Jimmy Fund with Bob Hall, from Winter Haven, Fla. (Red Sox spring training) to Boston
2004 – finishes a cross-country relay run (TREK USA) with nine others to benefit six Boston charities
2008 – finishes 54-mile birthday run (his age that year) for the Jimmy Fund
2015 – finishes the 9K Run to Home Base
CONTACT: For more information, contact Dave McGillivray dmse@dmsesports.com
ABOUT THE RED SOX FOUNDATION
The Red Sox Foundation (www.redsoxfoundation.org) is the official team charity of the Boston Red Sox. Their goal is to harness the passion our fans have for the Red Sox and transform it into a vehicle for positive exchange in the community. They support:
Each year the Red Sox Foundation also makes a limited number of small grants to select nonprofits in New England on a rotating basis and we also work with Front Office members, sponsors and volunteers of Red Sox Nation on a variety of community service projects. As a 501c3 nonprofit (tax ID #33-1007984), donations to the Red Sox Foundation are tax-deductible.
ABOUT DMSE SPORTS
Founded by Dave McGillivray in 1981, DMSE Sports is a leader in sports event management, specializing in creating, marketing and producing mass participatory athletic events throughout the U.S. and abroad. DMSE works with the B.A.A operations team in overseeing all the logistics and technical operations of the B.A.A. Boston Marathon, and manages the TD Beach to Beacon in Maine, the New Balance Falmouth Road Race on Cape Cod, the Finish at the 50 at Patriot Place, the Feaster Five, the Bellin Run in Green Bay, Wis., and a new race in July called the DMSE Sports Classic Half Marathon, among others. For additional information on McGillivray or DMSE Sports, visit www.dmsesports.com or find DMSE on Facebook and Twitter.