From solo to soul-filling: Sarah Wassner Flynn shares how an unexpected act of friendship boosted her on a long training run for the Boston Marathon. 

I arrived in Boston for the New Balance Indoor Track National Championships on a Wednesday evening. My schedule there was intense, to say the least: Competitions every day until Sunday, team meetings at night, squeezing in meals at odd hours, and trying to get a little work in the narrow cracks of down time that I had. But, being on the coaching staff of one of the top track teams in the nation with nearly 30 athletes competing and all the moving parts that comes along with that, I’d have very little down time. 

Coach Sarah with two of her talented athletes.

So you can imagine how anxious I was about getting in my long run over the weekend. With just five weeks to go until the Boston Marathon, I had a crucial 19 miles on tap. Training for the Boston Marathon in Boston sounded ideal…in theory. But when? Where? How? I dreaded having to do it solo in a new-to-me city, and still had to sort it all out. 

On my second morning there, a Friday, I had just enough time to log a six-mile run along the Charles River. When I returned to my hotel, I hit “save” on my watch, and my run’s data auto-loaded into Strava. 

I received the notification a few minutes later. 

“Welcome to Boston!” it read. “Maybe we could run together tomorrow morning?” 

And just like that, Caitlin slid into my Strava DMs. 

In this scenario, a DM from Caitlin might as well have been from Des Linden. When it comes to Boston, she is that girl. She’s run it several times, impressively so, with a sub-three-hour PR on the course. And, as a Massachusetts native and a Harvard graduate, she knows the city inside and out. In the fall of 2021, soon after Caitlin and I met as cross country coaches, I tracked her progress on my phone as she traversed from Hopkinton to Boston during the Covid-postponed marathon. When she returned to practice, sporting the ubiquitous blue and yellow finishers jacket, her gleaming medal in hand, I admired her fierceness. Maybe I’ll do that one day, I thought. 

Eventually, we went our separate ways—me, to a different team, and her, to Central America, where her husband was transferred for work. Inspired by her dedication to Boston, I eventually made getting there my own goal and got the qualifying time last fall at the Twin Cities Marathon. We kept in touch here and there, but, both being busy moms living in separate countries, our communication didn’t extend much beyond Strava comments and brief texts.  

A running buddy to beat all running buddies!

Now, Caitlin’s back living in the northeast, also training for Boston. And she’s still super-fast, almost intimidatingly so. I thought about her recent training runs I’d dished out Kudos to on Strava with their speedy paces and distances. I can certainly hold my own, but not at that level. Was she sure she wanted to run with me? 

Caitlin reassured me that she would not only hang at my pace, but she’d run every one of those 19 miles with me—even though she’d done a tough 13-mile workout the day before. “I need the mileage,” she said casually. “And besides, it’ll be great to catch up.” 

She had a point: When was the last time I had two-plus uninterrupted hours to talk to an old friend? Maybe, well, never, at least not since becoming a mom of four. So, off we went, on a dreary, chilly morning destined for an out-and-back on the race course to the town of Newton. “You have to do heartbreak,” Caitlin implored, reassuring me that the notorious hill (make that hills, there are three in total) “wasn’t so bad.” We kept our pace light enough so we could chat and swap stories from the past three years. Caitlin pointed out various landmarks and offered bits of race advice—and a bagful of gummy bears after my Gu supply dwindled. When we crested Heartbreak Hill, my legs and chest heavy but my body and spirit otherwise still very much intact, I agreed with Caitlin: this wasn’t so bad at all. 

Boston strong, always.

When I look at the various ways running has woven its way through my life, I’m grateful. Three years ago, running connected me to Caitlin—ultimately igniting a long-simmering fire inside me to dream big Boston dreams. And two weeks ago, it did again. And next month, on race day, she’ll be there once more (albeit several minutes ahead of me). Running has gifted me with so many things: Confidence, health, happiness. But topping that list? Amazing friends like Caitlin. Those who pop in your world when you least expect it, plying you with gummy bears and good stories, and turning what could have been a forgettable solo run into 19 soul-filling miles that I’ll always remember. 

Tell Us: What’s something a friend has done for you to boost one of your recent runs?