NORTH ATTLEBORO — Thousands of runners will descend on the town of Hopkinton Monday to take part in the 128th edition of the world’s oldest continuously run marathon, the Boston Marathon. Every athlete who participates in this race, or any race for that matter, typically has goals in mind: participating, raising money for worthy causes, achieving a personal-best or a set finishing time, or just finishing.
For North Attleboro’s Noah Barney, who turned 24 on Sunday, he has goals for the Hopkinton-to-Boston course, but they are more big-picture: survive (healthy) and advance. Because Barney has bigger fish to fry than just taking part in and finishing Boston: he is hoping to take part in and finish six of the world’s biggest and most prestigious marathons, and Boston is step four of six.
Barney is taking part in the Abbott World Marathon Majors competition (WMM), which is a series of championship-style competition for marathon runners that started in 2006. It is a points-based competition founded on six major marathon races recognized as the most high-profile in a calendar year, and the series comprises annual races in the cities of Tokyo, Boston, Berlin, London, Chicago and New York. It was originally formed to lure the world’s top marathoners to not have to pick and choose the marathons in which they wanted to participate, but instead reward them for taking part in all of them, with a point system in place that rewarded higher finishes in each race, and awarding first-place finishers, men and women, $250,000, second place $50,000 and third place $25,000.
The WMM is still a big deal to the world’s top marathoners, who can potentially boost their annual earnings significantly by taking part, but being part of the program has also lured less-marquee runners, like Barney, because the WMM also rewards marathoners who complete all six races — not necessarily consecutively, and they need not do so in a calendar year — in their lifetimes, with what is called the Six Star medal, and an automatic spot in the WMM Hall of Fame.
If properly registered, the Six Star medal is awarded to the participant upon completing the sixth different race in the program, at the finish line. To date, there are approximately 10,000 runners worldwide who have earned the medal.
But Barney is taking things to a different level. As mentioned, a runner who targets the WMM races in hopes of earning the medal and the Hall of Fame recognition can take their sweet old time, perhaps taking decades to complete all six races. For example, 683 runners who took part in last year’s Boston Marathon and completed it as their sixth WMM finish earned the Six Star medal. The youngest was 27, the oldest was 71, and the average age of the medalist was 51 years old.
Barney, on the other hand, is hoping to complete his Six Star journey in late September when he completes the Berlin Marathon. Not only would he be one of the youngest to earn the Six Star Medal, but he also would be completing the six-race journey in a 12-month period. He has already checked off the first three legs of the WMM journey, completing marathons in Chicago (3:47:19, Oct. 8, 2023), New York (4:20:40, Nov. 5, 2023), and Tokyo (4:32:58, March 3, 2024).
“My dad came to me one day and said that he found that there have been only 19 people who have done the Six Star challenge on their first time trying, so if I can do it, I’m part of a unique bunch of people; it shows that you can do special things if you set your heart on it,” Barney said.
But Barney’s biggest challenge in achieving this history-making journey will come in this upcoming seven-day period, because while finishing the Boston Marathon is an achievement in itself, the fifth race in the sequence will take place in London — on April 21, just six days later. Typically, a marathoner takes weeks or months to recover from one race before tackling the next, but Barney will have his work cut out for him in this week-long challenge.
“Because my training (leading up to Boston) hasn’t been where I wanted it to be, I have it all planned out,” Barney said. “After Boston, I’ll come home for physical therapy, and then fly out (to England) Wednesday night. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s very daunting to look at, but fortunately, luckily my second-, third-, and fourth-ever marathons were just seven days apart, in Italy, so I have put myself up to similar challenges in the past. I am definitely prepared mentally, and hopefully physically, to do that.”
Barney grew up in North Attleboro with his sister and parents, and took to sports at a young age.
“I went through the public school system, and played a ton of sports: indoor track, outdoor track, soccer, tennis, some wrestling, just about everything,” Barney said. “I went on to Union College in Schenectady (NY), did soccer and track there as well, but unfortunately, like a lot of kids, I lost a lot of my college athletic career and social life to COVID. During that time, my college classes were all online, we were at home, so I sort of got back into running, originally because my freshman year of college I actually tore up a lot of ligaments in my ankle playing soccer, then got back into running through COVID, through rehab, prepping for my next soccer season (as sophomore), and I fell in love with it.
“I was super into numbers and improvement and being competitive, and I got my mile down in sophomore year to 4:07, in that area, and I kept working on it, in and out of running a bit, but transitioning into the marathon world, and enjoying the culture and the travel around the world.”
Barney ran his first marathon in Luzern, Switzerland, shortly after his college graduation.
“It was a very obscure course,” Barney said. “But I loved traveling, trying to get immersed in the culture; on the course, you get to get involved in the culture and the lifestyle of the country that you’re visiting, something a normal tourist would not get to experience. I thought it was cool being introduced to that in Switzerland.
“I know I’ve been enjoying the traveling, so I thought, why not do what a lot of people have strived for: getting to run (the WMM races), so put my head down, did a lot of training, and went all-in to see if I could get them all done, to challenge myself. Doing them all in a row during a 12-month period is a cool experience, but there’s also lot of luck involved getting (accepted into each of the starting fields).”
As he heads to the starting line in Hopkinton Monday, he recognizes that he is likely not in peak physical condition for the rigors of running Boston and London, especially within a one-week period.
“When I originally started, I was probably running five- to six-times a week, at a pretty fast pace, always driven by numbers and time, primarily around North Attleboro, Route 152 towards Mansfield, Cumberland, anywhere to get the miles in without dealing with traffic, looking for more peaceful runs. Unfortunately, I sort of went in and out of training before Chicago, and I haven’t been healthy since, even though I’ve done a ton of races since.
“I had knee surgery in eighth grade from a soccer injury, and had pretty substantial ankle surgery in college, and I always had some lingering knee pain, and it has ramped up since I started this journey. Since Chicago, I have only been able to run once a week, which is not normal for marathoners, sometimes twice, but once a week a long run, from 13 to 18 miles to keep that threshold to continue to work on my journey and what I want to accomplish. That’s sort of been going on since early August, September, and I’ve done four marathons and a half-Ironman since, and I’ve pushed my limits post-Tokyo, and I’m turning a corner.”
Feeling familiar with course
Though he wasn’t able to train on the Boston Marathon course leading up to Monday’s race, Barney still feels as if he’s familiar enough with it.
“Boston, specifically, I have a little knowledge of the course because I grew up in the state, I’d been to the marathon when I was younger, but what’s interesting about Boston itself is that the big challenge is miles 16-20, Heartbreak Hill, an emotional breaker for a lot of people.
“Luckily in North Attleboro, though it’s nowhere near the same, but close, the grade and distance of (Cumberland’s) Nate Whipple Highway where I sometimes train isn’t that much different that Heartbreak Hill. So I hope to power through that; I often finish over there in my training races to challenge myself.”
For Barney, the challenge of earning the Six Star medal within a calendar year is but a small portion of what he hopes to accomplish on this 157.2-mile journey. He also hopes to raise $15,000 for several charitable causes to bring awareness of their work and to give something back.
“There’s a couple of charities that are nearer to my heart than others,” Barney said. “I try to pick those that I believe in and stand for, because that’s very important. For the three remaining majors, I’m running for Boston Scores, a nonprofit out of Boston and they work with the public schools in Boston to support them using poetry, good habits, good role models, to help them succeed academically in the future. I’ve been working with them, volunteering at academic and soccer events, and it allows me to experience a different upbringing. I’m very fortunate in how I grew up, but I completely understand that most kids don’t grow up in the same environment, like split homes, so I get to listen to them and encourage them to play soccer, which helped mold me, whether it was the sport and coaches, and help them excel. A great group of people who do great things for the kids in Boston.
He’s also running for Save the Rhino, an organization that bring awareness to the issue of poaching, and Children for a Better World, a Berlin, Germany-based organization that provides children with access to museums, learning supplies and other educational opportunities.
“I think a lot of people understand that life can be hard, but it can be even harder when you don’t have adequate resources growing up, where you’re not set up to succeed, so a lot of my message is that if you focus and you’re able to work toward your goals, whether it’s academically, athletically, just excelling in life, through tough times, just make your life better and have a more positive outlook on life,” he said.
When asked if he would consider reconsidering the Six Star challenge beyond the self-imposed 12-month period if circumstances change, Barney said, “It’s definitely come to mind, especially battling through a lot of injuries, but I think I’m turning a corner now and I’m putting in adequate training. I’m not opposed to breaking them up, but for me, if you talk with anyone I’ve ever grown up with, the one thing my heart’s set on is persevering, sticking with what I want to do, so I set this goal mid-last year.
“I want to do these, so I put my head down, and found these companies that supported the causes that I support. I have been through the mental and physical struggles, but with just three (races) left, I can’t see it any other way. I’ve always been and wanted to be a little different.”
And it’s about more than running for him; it’s about learning.
“I try to find a marathon where I can experience the culture, whether Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Germany, anything like that; everywhere around the world has that, and it allows me to become a more well-rounded individual and be the best that I can. Running is more — I use it as a learning experience. Obviously, I love times and try to break personal bests, but I like learning from people around me, love talking to people on the course about where they’re from, and love endurance sport, and I push myself and expand in that way.”