Mark Bauman finished his 57th Boston Marathon in a row in 2026. His streak began in 1969. The race lists it as the longest consecutive finish streak in its history, although nobody has run all 130 Boston Marathons. Patty Hung holds the women's record, and she finished her 40th straight Boston the same day.
Los Angeles, Cincinnati's Flying Pig and the Bratislava Marathon in Slovakia are young enough that some runners have finished every edition of the one race. The races call them Legacy Runners or Streakers. The Marine Corps Marathon called them Groundpounders, and its club ended in 2017. These clubs can only lose members.
Boston's longest streaks
Bauman is 76 and never set out to build a record. A profile of him in Marathon Handbook ran under his own words, "I Never Intended To Start A Run Streak". In one of those years he cramped on Heartbreak Hill and came in as the last official finisher. Hung is 80 and describes herself in similar terms. "I'm not a great runner. I'm just persistent," she told EssentiallySports in 2026. A year earlier she told KTVU that she runs "not so much for the exercise but for the meditation". In 2025 the B.A.A. made the two of them official starters.
The Boston Globe described the Quarter Century Club in 2022 as "a group of Boston Marathoners who have completed 25 or more consecutive races." The same article listed what the streaker John Gorman had run through: "broken bones, a torn meniscus, Lyme disease, prostate cancer". Mark Buciak's cardiologist told him he could not run the race. "But he didn't say I couldn't walk it," Buciak said. The race's details are on 42cal's Boston Marathon page.
Al Richmond ran the year he was shot
The first Marine Corps Marathon was held in 1976, partly as a recruiting tool. Al Richmond helped organise it. "And I decided to run the first one. I'm not sure exactly why," he told NPR in 2015. "But anyway, I did, and got hooked right after that."
Muggers in New Orleans shot Richmond three times in the spring of 1990. "I ended up having three major operations that summer," he said. He gave up on that autumn's marathon, and he did not know there were others who had run every one. Then a newspaper ran an article about them on the Saturday a week before the race, and his wife read it at breakfast. "And she looked at me, said, wait a minute, you've run all of them. You've got to do it." He trained with three 3-mile runs and one 6-mile run before the marathon. "So I kept the string going."
Richmond remembered seven original Groundpounders. He put it more loosely to WTOP in 2017: "We found out there were six or seven of us, and then there were three or four. I didn't want to be the first one to not do it." Only Richmond and Will Brown were left by the 40th Marine Corps Marathon in 2015. That year Richmond told NPR, "we wish all seven of the original groundpounders were with us. And there's no joy in the fact that they're not."
The last two Groundpounders
In 2016 Brown started the 41st race but did not complete it. That left Richmond as the only Groundpounder.
Both men started the 42nd race together on 22 October 2017. Richmond was 78. The race has a time cut at Mile 17 called the Gauntlet, and runners must hold a 14-minute-mile pace to get through it. Brown could not. The race's own announcement said that "U.S. Marines led Brown and his running partner to a straggler bus that transported them to the finish."
Both retired after that race. Brown had stood on the start line 42 years in a row and finished 40 times. "The most incredible thing about my MCM wasn't that I was able to finish 40 times but that I was able to toe the starting line 42 years in a row," he said. The marathon's official history records that Richmond "announced his retirement after running 42 MCMs, his last in 2017." No one has carried the title since.
Los Angeles still has 86
The Los Angeles Marathon started in 1986, and its Legacy Runners have finished every one. NBC Los Angeles counted 92 of them at the 40th race in 2025, including 10 women. At the 41st in 2026 there were 86. Six streaks ended in a single year.
At the 40th race several of them no longer ran it. Lou Briones finished on crutches after surgery and had taken to walking the course. "We're legacy runners, we just don't know when to quit," he said. "No matter what the conditions are, you gotta be there at the starting line on race day." The oldest Legacy Runner was Rick Bingham at 87, and he raced in a wheelchair after an Achilles injury. Luis Gallardo had planned to stop after his 38th because of his knees. He kept going in Bingham's spare racing wheelchair. "To do it with him is just a blessing," Gallardo said.
The Eaton Fire in January 2025 displaced the Legacy Runners Myron Oakes and Joseph Lyvers. Lyvers lost his home. Both still ran the 40th race. "To us, it's never a question of if," Oakes said. "It's always a question of how well we can run."
The Flying Pig's Streakers
The Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati began in 1999. Its Streakers have run every edition since. The Cincinnati paper CityBeat counted about 85 of them in 2018, and about 11 were women. The race's Streakers page now lists 54 names.
Jean Schmidt is one of them. The former congresswoman ran her 27th Pig in 2026. "It's Cincinnati. It's the Pig. It's the people. This is my hometown," she told UC Health. The race's page sets one firm condition: "Streakers must participate in-person to maintain their status."
Bratislava's three
The Bratislava Marathon's rules for its 2026 edition named three runners who had taken part in all 18 in-person editions: David Nagy, Eva Seidlová and Ondrej Székely. The count leaves out the virtual-only race of 2020. The three were offered free entry to the 2026 race by emailing the organiser before 31 December 2025. Entry rules are on 42cal's Bratislava Marathon page.
Did a virtual 2020 count?
Each race decided for itself what the pandemic year meant for a streak. The Los Angeles Marathon ran in person on 8 March 2020, before the shutdowns.
Boston moved its 2020 race to September and held it virtually. Finishing it still kept a streak alive. For some streakers the delay helped. John Gorman had a pulmonary embolism in February 2020, and an April race would have left him little time to recover. Betty Yung would have been 35 weeks pregnant on the original April date. She had planned to run anyway. "My goal was to try to run all the downhills and walk up all the uphills or any slight incline," she told the Globe. "And then give birth at Newton-Wellesley [Hospital] if I had to."
Her streak survived into 2021. That year Boston again offered a virtual race, and the B.A.A. ruled in writing that "the virtual 125th Boston Marathon will count towards a participant's consecutive finish streak." Boston's streaker rule saved her streak. The Globe reported that she "otherwise would have needed to run 7:47 faster than her qualifying standard to keep her streak alive."
Bratislava counts only its in-person races, so the virtual 2020 edition does not appear in anyone's total. The San Francisco Marathon let a virtual finish keep a runner's legacy status, but "no gifts will be awarded". Chicago does not count a 2020 virtual finish toward its legacy entry at all.
What each race gives back
In 2022 the Globe reported a B.A.A. rule for runners with 25 or more consecutive finishes. If they had finished the year before, they could register early without a qualifying time. Runners with 10 to 24 straight got an early registration window. But the 2027 rules say only that streaks of ten years or more "may entitle applicants with early registration".
New York uses "streaker" for runners with 15 or more consecutive New York City Marathon finishes. A December 2025 analysis by the site Running with Rock counted 284 active streaks of that length. It also reported that runners with 15 or more finishes get guaranteed entry. In 2017 the New York Road Runners even let its CEO keep running the marathon despite a ban on staff entering. Amby Burfoot quoted the CEO's reason: "We're runners. We understand streaks. These things are important." That year Dave Obelkevich ran his 41st straight New York at 74.
Los Angeles gives its loyal runners pins, a hat, a hoodie and other merchandise but no entry benefit. Its page warns that "Skipping a year resets your streak." The Flying Pig's Streakers get recognition and a place on the list.
Chicago and Houston reward loyalty without asking for a streak. Chicago's legacy entry goes to anyone with five or more Chicago finishes in the last ten years. The Houston Marathon's legacy program starts at ten finishes, and they "do not have to be consecutive". At 25 Houston finishes a runner gets a free entry for the following year. At 30 all future registration fees are waived.
| Race | What long-term runners get | Must the years be consecutive? |
|---|---|---|
| Boston | May get early registration at 10+ years (2027 rules) | Yes |
| New York City | Guaranteed entry at 15+ finishes (reported by Running with Rock) | No |
| Bratislava | Free entry for every-edition runners; €42 flat fee at 10+ editions (2026 rules) | Every edition for free entry |
| Houston | Free entry at 25 finishes; all future fees waived at 30 | No |
| Chicago | Legacy entry at 5+ finishes in the last 10 years | No |
| Los Angeles | Merchandise, no entry benefit | Yes |
| Flying Pig | Recognition only | Yes, in person |
Starting a streak now
No one starting today can join the Groundpounders, the Legacy Runners, the Flying Pig's Streakers or Bratislava's three, but a streak at an older race is still possible. Boston's rules say early registration may come at ten straight years, and New York's streaker label starts at fifteen. Houston and Chicago count finishes without needing them in a row. Chicago's 2027 legacy application window runs from 8 to 29 October 2026.
Further reading
- NPR interview with Al Richmond (2015): the 1990 shooting and the seven original Groundpounders.
- WTOP on Richmond's 42nd Marine Corps Marathon (2017): Richmond at 78, before his last race.
- Marine Corps Marathon release on Will Brown's retirement (2017): the Mile 17 cut and the end of the Groundpounders.
- Marine Corps Marathon history: the race's official record of Richmond's 42 finishes.
- NBC Los Angeles on the 40th LA Marathon (2025): profiles of Briones, Bingham and Gallardo.
- NBC Los Angeles on the 41st LA Marathon (2026): the count of 86 Legacy Runners.
- Boston Globe on Boston Marathon streakers (2022): Yung, Gorman, Buciak and the 2020 virtual race.
- Six Minute Mile on the 2026 Boston Marathon: Bauman's 57th and Hung's 40th.
- B.A.A. 2027 Boston Marathon rules and policies: the current early registration rule for streakers.
- Flying Pig Marathon Streakers page: the 54 names and the in-person rule.
- Bratislava Marathon rules (in Slovak): free entry for the three every-edition runners.
- Running with Rock on NYRR legacy finishers: a count of New York City Marathon streaks.
- Houston Marathon legacy program: rewards at 10, 25 and 30 finishes.
