Jericho teen Zane White was feeling bored during the Covid-19 pandemic when he convinced his father, Dan, to buy him a gaming monitor if he ran 26 miles nonstop on the family treadmill.
“Sometimes — it’s very weird with me — I get this crazy burst of motivation for the randomest things,” the senior at Mount Mansfield Union High School recently recalled.
Six years later, White, 18, is the youngest of 84 Vermonters to win entrance into Monday’s 130th Boston Marathon. This time, having already reaped an Xbox screen, he’s running for something bigger: his younger brother, Max.
Growing up, White watched his mother, Brooke, join the race to raise money for Boston Children’s Hospital, where Max has received treatment for a set of connective tissue disorders called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Then Brooke was sidelined by long Covid symptoms, spurring her older son to want to carry on the family tradition.
“I thought if I could do it on a treadmill,” he said, “I could probably do it with thousands of people cheering me on.”
The teen has faced a few roadblocks. The marathon requires runners to be at least 18, so he’s had to wait until now to become one of 27 athletes his age to qualify for the field of 30,000.
Then comes White’s lack of experience. When he first tried the treadmill the summer between sixth and seventh grades, he found the first 10 miles “super easy,” only to tire at the halfway mark and seemingly hit a wall before finishing in about six hours.
Entering high school, White replicated the time — which, alas, is twice the marathon’s cutoff for men his age. Then again, organizers allow a select number of athletes to run for charity. White applied and won acceptance to the Boston Children’s Hospital’s “Miles for Miracles” team, earning him a collection website and coaching.
White started three-mile training sessions in December. He gradually increased that over the winter and recently ran the first 21 miles of the actual marathon route, which starts in the Massachusetts suburb of Hopkinton and moves on to Ashland, Framingham, Natick, Wellesley, Newton, Brookline and Boston.
The trek, White learned, is no treadmill. Take Heartbreak Hill at mile 20.
“I get the name. I definitely understand it.”
Tapping social media, White has raised $15,000 in honor of his brother, a 16-year-old Mount Mansfield sophomore.
“I can do my part,” the teen runner writes on his web page, “to give back to the institution that helped my brother and family so much.”
White is set to take a gap year upon graduation to contemplate how to channel his interest in piano, guitar, DJing and music production (which first drew press attention at age 10) into college study and a career.
But that’s down the road — 26.2 miles, to be exact.
“I’m so excited to experience this from a runner’s point of view, and would 100% do it again for this charity, for this cause.”
Or whatever else he can score a bet on.
