Like so many kids in Canada, Kristian Jamieson grew up playing hockey. He was never the best athlete on the ice, but when the skates came off for conditioning, everything changed.
“Whenever we would go off the ice and start running, I always seemed to be in the front of the pack with the guys,” Jamieson said. “And so, I was like, OK, maybe there might be a little bit of a natural talent or so.”
Jamieson decided to explore that potential talent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he was stuck indoors all day. At first, he ran a few miles around his home in southern Ontario. But before too long, he fell in love with running and signed up to run a marathon.
“The first race I signed up for was a marathon in my city, Niagara Falls. And my goal was to run a four-hour marathon,” he said. “[But I] went out, ran a three-hour 15-minute marathon. And I was like, wow, like I didn’t think I was going to be able to do that.”
Jamieson, now 23, set a goal at the time: He wanted to qualify for the prestigious Boston Marathon, which sets strict qualifying times based on gender and age. Not only would qualifying for the race be a major personal achievement, but Jamieson’s ties to the race actually go back more than a century. His great-great-grandfather, Tom Longboat, was the race’s first Indigenous champion back in 1907.
“It just feels super cool that I can be the next person in the family tree to, kind of, carry on the running journey,” Jamieson said.
He dedicated himself to the goal of qualifying for Boston, increasing his weekly mileage by fitting in runs at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. before dental school. It all paid off in 2024 when he ran a marathon in Niagara Falls in two hours, 52 minutes and 55 seconds.
“That day was a dream come true for me,” he said.
Jamieson is now getting ready to retrace his ancestor Tom Longboat’s footsteps during the famed road race that starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and ends in the state’s capital city, Boston.
“Longboat was a celebrity from the day he won the Boston Marathon,” Bruce Kidd, a Canadian Olympic distance runner and author of a Longboat biography, said. “And, you know, growing up as a runner in Ontario, you always heard his name.”
Longboat was an Onondaga runner from Six Nations of the Grand River near Brantford, Ontario. At just 12 years old, he was forced to attend the Mohawk Institute Residential School.
“He ran away from that residential school. He probably hid out in Buffalo, with relatives, for a while after that,” Kidd explained. “He became an agricultural worker on farms in southern Ontario. And he always ran.”
Longboat entered his first race at 17 years old. By 19, he had won the Boston Marathon. He went on to break records, represent Canada at the Olympics, and was later inducted into the country’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Kidd added he did it all in the face of relentless racism.
“Most of the stories about him were not favorable. He was regarded as an outstanding runner who squandered away his ability through alcoholism and laziness,” Kidd said.
Many of Longboat’s white coaches perceived him as lazy, he added, because he refused to run sprints on the track. Instead, Longboat would rather go out for a 20-mile jog.
It wasn’t just to see what would happen; it was a tried and true Indigenous method that included alternating between intense workouts, lighter training days and recovery periods.
“Here was a man who knew his own body very well,” Kidd said. “[He] followed a Haudenosaunee tradition that has been documented all the way back into the 19th and even 18th century of long-distance training for warfare, for communications, for security and so on … and used that to develop the strength to become a superb runner.”
Longboat’s training was so successful that it’s largely been adopted by marathon runners today, including members of the Longboat Roadrunners, which is now one of the top running clubs in Toronto.
“What a guy to name your club after,” said Bert de Vries, who helped found the club in the 1980s. “We’re honoring the Native traditions of Canada, we’re honoring Longboat himself and we like to model our training on his.”
The Longboat Roadrunners organize an annual race called the Longboat Toronto Island Run, and some of Longboat’s descendants hold a run on the Six Nations reserve in his name, too. His presence is also seen around the city on any given day.
“Streets were named after him, schools were named after him,” Kidd said. “And I think that today, he’s recognized for the superb, courageous athlete that he was.”
Now, Jamieson is carrying that legacy back in Boston — and he said family members are planning to make the journey to the US to cheer him on.
One day, Jamieson said, he hopes to be just as fast as Longboat, who finished Boston in two hours, 24 minutes and 24 seconds. But for now, following in his footsteps will do just fine.
The 129th Boston Marathon takes place on April 21.
Editor’s note: The World’s reporter Bianca Hillier received a media invite to participate in Monday’s race.
