For more than 15 years, a West Hartford couple has been running the Boston Marathon to raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

By Ronni Newton

Kelly Horan and Tom Golembeski are always running around West Hartford and the surrounding area – literally running – as they are often training for a marathon or even longer race.

On Monday, April 21, both will take their place at the starting line in Hopkinson, Massachusetts, and 26.2 miles later they will complete their 2025 Boston Marathon in support of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

“Both of us have always run for charity,” said Golembeski. He’s run the Boston Marathon every year since 2007, other than the COVID year (2020). Horan has run Boston every year since 2009 other than last year when she was injured.

“It is truly a passion for us to help the amazing work being done by Dana Farber to help those battling cancer, and their families,” Horan said.

“I ran my first marathon in 1998. I was in med school at the time,” said Golembeski, who has run more than 80 marathons since then. “As I get older and slower, I run longer races,” he added.

Horan said she’s run close to 35 races of marathon distance or even longer, including a 50K (roughly 31 miles) and a 50-miler.

Running together and with their friends is more than exercise, and more than training. “It’s kind of our social group,” Golembeski said. And while they often do their runs one the Farmington Bike Trail, he added, “I’ve gotten to know [West Hartford] really well by running around town by foot.”

Golembeski is a pediatric anesthesiologist, and did his residency and fellowship in Boston. “I cared for a lot of Dana Farber patients,” he said. The hospital, and the marathon, were a massive presence in the Boston area, he said, and once he was done with training and moved to Connecticut, he started his annual running of the race to support Dana Farber. “The first year I moved here I started doing it. Basically, I have fallen in love with it.”

Horan is a vice president at Pratt & Whitney and president of International Aero Engines. She’s a native of West Hartford but fell in love with Boston while earning her master’s degree from Boston University. She and Golembeski, who married in 2003, lived in Boston until moving to West Hartford.

They met at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire, where Horan played soccer – her first love. At the time, running was just a necessary part of training, but running and supporting Dana Farber has become a passion.

“My mom passed from cancer three years ago. She was treated at Dana Farber,” Horan said. Her mom, Mary Ellen Horan, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer in 2013. “When my mom was diagnosed, we immediately knew Dana Farber was where we wanted her treated.” And while the diagnosis was ominous, with the treatment she received, “my mom lived a very rich eight years,” Horan said.

The couple usually sticks together during the Boston Marathon. Horan’s mom would always cheer them on at mile 3, 9, and 16, and be waiting at the finish line. While she has lost her biggest cheerleader, knowing the treatment her mom received inspired her even more to continue to run the Boston Marathon to support Dana Farber.

Horan and Golembeski ran during the bombing year, the nor’easter year, the 90-degree heat year. Horan said she never stops to change her socks during a marathon but in 2013 – the bombing year – she stopped to change her socks at mile 16. It was a two-minute delay, and they were at the turn onto Hereford Street (around mile 25) when the bomb exploded. She recalled hearing the announcements: “You all need to disperse. There’s been an explosion.”

They were back the next year, and Horan said it was her fastest marathon ever. Their average marathon time is in the range of 4:15 to 4:20.

Horan missed the 2024 Boston Marathon while recovering from tearing her ACL in March, just weeks before the race. She opted not to have surgery but said she recovered really well through the treatment she received from UConn Health Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, and successfully completed a 55K in California last fall.

“We almost always choose to run together, and for training we are usually together,” said Golembeski. In 2024, because Horan was injured, he ran with a friend who was doing his first-ever marathon. “We walked the last seven miles,” Golembeski, but they finished.

The Boston Athletic Association sets fundraising requirements, and Dana Farber has even higher levels. In aggregate, they’ve both raised well over $100,000.

This year, each had a fundraising goal of $15,000. As of Tuesday, Golembeski had raised $16,169.25 and Horan had raised $17,986.

Training wasn’t easy this year. “It’s been a tough winter, with more ice and snow” than the past few years, said Horan. While they do their long runs together on the weekends, during the week she prefers early morning runs, and it was often icy.

In their fundraising letter, Horan and Golembeski wrote that when they started running the Boston Marathon in support of Dana Farber, they already knew the importance of the charity’s work and that has grown over time. “We have witnessed firsthand the strength it takes for someone so close to you to face going through chemo, but it is also inspiring and humbling to see that strength, grace and courage and know how incredibly important the research and care are that take place everyday at Dana Farber. We have gotten to see the passion and caring the doctors and nurses at Dana Farber provide to their patients, it is inspiring and has made us even more passionate to support Dana Farber.”

They are thankful for the love and support their family has received over the years, and shared their fundraising pages, noting that 100% of donations are used “to advance the mission of DFCI to improve treatments for cancer and to improve patient’s quality of life.”

Anyone looking to donate can view Horan’s fundraising page click here and Golembeski’s page can be found here.

Friendly faces along the Boston Marathon route on Monday would be very much welcome, too, they said.

According to Dana Farber, “This year marks the 36th annual running of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC). One hundred percent of the money raised by the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge team benefits Dana-Farber’s Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research, whichsupports promising science research in its earliest stages. The Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge has raised more than $132 million for the Barr Program to date.”

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