James Redding and his mother Lisa Redding started their running journey together. Photo by Claire Law
James Redding is getting a head start on spring break.
The 19-year-old Boston College sophomore flew to Japan a few days ahead of his mid-semester break to take his spot among 37,500 people who ran the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday.
The Brighton teenager, who grew up attending Brookline schools and is now an assistant varsity hockey coach at Brookline High, already has five marathons under his belt, including three of the six original Abbott World Marathon Majors: Boston, New York and Chicago.
The World Marathon Majors, sponsored by the health care company Abbott Laboratories, is a competition that awards points and prize money to top finishers in high-profile marathons over the course of a year. The Sydney Marathon was added this year as the seventh race in the series, but the competition will continue to award its Six Star medal for any participants who complete the original six marathons.
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Redding unexpectedly secured a spot in the Tokyo race, his fourth World Marathon Major, through the lottery system, he said.
“I was like, ‘I can’t pass this up,’” Redding said. “We gotta go now.”
After Tokyo, he is on track to run the remaining two World Marathon Majors: London in April, then Berlin in September. If he finishes as planned, he has a chance at becoming the youngest male athlete to finish the six World Marathon Majors, at age 20 years and four months.
That distinction is now held by American Paralympic athlete Daniel Romanchuk, who completed the six Marathon Majors in the wheelchair division at 20 years and 7 months, in 2019. For non-para athletes, the youngest male to finish all six is Hendrik Tomala of Germany, who finished the six Marathon Majors in 2024 at just one day older than Romanchuk was when he finished, according to Abbott World Marathon Majors staff.
Redding’s mother, Lisa, whom he began his running journey with, was cheering him on in Tokyo.
“I never imagined going to Japan,” said Lisa Redding, who also went to Brookline High School and has worked at the school for over 20 years, first as a math teacher and now as an administrator. “Supporting him and watching him do his thing brings me so much joy.”
James Redding, center, runs the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday, March 2, 2025. Photo by Deb Redding.
James started running when he was a freshman at Brookline High in 2019, to get in shape for hockey tryouts. He persuaded his mother to join him on runs, with the goal of running a 5K every month.
“When your 14-year-old son says, ‘Hey, Ma, let’s do something together,’ you don’t say no,” Lisa Redding said. “I just kept saying yes, because my son wanted to spend time with me.”
After the 5K, they trained for a 10K. By the fall of 2021, they had finished their first half marathon together.
“And then, as soon as I crossed the finish line of the half marathon, I turned to her and I said, ‘Let’s do a full,’” James Redding said.
Lisa Redding refused at first, she said, until James told her one of the charities partnering with the Boston Marathon was the cancer center where she was treated for Hodgkin lymphoma, when James was 2 years old.
“He told me, ‘Ma, you can run the Boston Marathon for Dana-Farber,’” Lisa said, blinking away tears. “How could I say no to that? They literally saved my life.”
James, not yet 18, was too young to run the Boston Marathon. He cheered on his mother as she ran her first marathon in April, and he ran his first marathon in Portland, Maine, the following October, as a high school senior.
He went on to run his second marathon in Clearwater, Florida. Then, he ran the Boston Marathon for the Brookline Education Foundation, the Chicago marathon for the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, and the New York City marathon for New Balance. He secured a spot in the New York City marathon through his work at the Warrior Ice Arena, which includes coaching clinics, being a hockey camp counselor, working games, and doing facilities and ice management work.
Redding’s finish times for his marathons have been around 4 hours, plus or minus 15 minutes, he said. Tokyo was his slowest time, at around 4 hours and 54 minutes, as he had been battling a cough for the past few days. His fastest time was in Chicago, at 3 hours 43 minutes.
James said his training cycles are around four months, starting at 10 miles, and going up in 2-mile increments every two weeks.
“A lot of a lot of people are, like, ‘You’re nuts,’” James said. “I’ve gotten to the point where running doesn’t suck anymore. After a certain point … you mentally grasp it, you physically grasp it, and as you do it more and more, it hurts less and less.”
Deb Re, James’ great-aunt, said she’s watched him grow up into a young man who is warm, caring, curious, brave, and disciplined.
“He keeps moving that goal post. Every time he reaches a goal, he sets another one,” Re said. “It’s not really so much about the endgame, it’s about how he lives his life … it’s a joy to watch him do that.”
Redding said when he goes running, he’s in his own world.
“Everything else just stops … I never think about school, work, hockey, anything else,” Redding said. “It’s just, I’m going for this run. Enjoy that it’s a beautiful day out. Or, if it’s raining … it’s good practice, and if it’s not raining on race day, it’s just a bonus.”
This story is part of a partnership between Brookline.News and the Boston University Department of Journalism.