Dave McGillivray is a U.S.-based road race director, entrepreneur, philanthropist, motivational speaker, author, and athlete.
McGillivray is the founder and president of DMSE Sports, Inc., a full-service event-management organization. McGillivray has directed or consulted on more than 1,400 events throughout the world including the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) Boston Marathon, the ASICS Falmouth Road Race, the Mount Washington Road Race, the Feaster Five Road Race, the Olympic Marathon trials, and the Olympic Games.
McGillivray is the founder of the Dave McGillivray Finish Strong Foundation, which seeks to inspire and empower youth to increase physical activity, expand literacy, and build community and self-esteem through running, reading, and acts of kindness. McGillivray has given more than 1,400 motivational talks and he presented a Ted Talk. He is the author of four autobiographical books.
McGillivray has completed 165 marathons, including 50 consecutive Boston Marathons. In 1978, he completed an 80-day trek across the United States, running the 3,452 miles from Medford, Ore., to Medford, Mass. to benefit the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. [1]
McGillivray is a graduate of Medford High School and Merrimack College, both of which named him valedictorian. McGillivray was born and raised in Medford, and now resides in North Andover, Mass. He is married with five children.
In 1978, McGillivray gained notoriety for his athleticism when he ran across the U.S. from Medford, Oregon, to his hometown of Medford, Massachusetts. Over the course of 80 days, he ran a distance of 3,452 miles, averaging 45–50 miles a day for the majority of the journey. He culminated his cross-America run by running into in Fenway Park in Boston. His effort raised funds for the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. [2] [3]
In 1980, McGillivray completed several athletic endeavors.
In 1981, McGillivray:
During the rest of the 1980s, he continued to combine his love of athletic endeavors and fundraising for charity.
In 2004, McGillivray and nine other marathons runners ran relay-style across the U.S. following the same path he took in 1978, raising $350,000 for five charities benefiting children. They called the run TREK USA, which was an acronym for Trans-continental Embracing Kids.
In February 2018, he completed the World Marathon Challenge, which consists of seven marathons on seven continents in seven days.
Each year McGillivray runs his birthday age in miles, a tradition he started when he was 12 and realized that running was his passion.
McGillivray has also run the Boston Marathon each year since 1973—50 as of 2022: the first 15 years were as an entrant, and 35 during his time as the race director, running the course after his duties are completed. [6]
As of March 2023, McGillivray has completed:
McGillivray created DMSE Sports, Inc. in 1981, a firm that manages mass participatory road race events such as marathons, half-marathons, 10Ks, 5-milers, 5Ks, and charity walks. In 1982, when McGillivray was on the Governor's Council of Physical Fitness and Sports, he helped create the Bay State Games as a way to bring a statewide summer sports festival to Massachusetts.
He has worked with the Boston Marathon since 1988, first as technical director, and then as race director beginning in 2001. [7] In 1998, Olympic Gold Medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson tapped him to become the race director of the TD Beach To Beacon 10K Road Race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. [8]
Other races McGillivray and his team have managed include the Bellin 10K Run in Green Bay, Wisconsin; the B.A.A. Half Marathon/10K/5K; Across the Bay 10K; the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk; the Runner's World Festival & Half; the Mount Washington Road Race; the Feaster Five Thanksgiving Day Road Race; and the ASICS Falmouth Road Race. DMSE has also created several races, including the Fenway Park Marathon (a 113 lap course held entirely within the ballpark), Run to Home Base (Fenway Park; Boston), [4] Harvard Pilgrim Finish at the Fifty (Gillette Stadium; Foxboro, Massachusetts).
In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, McGillivray, along with his team at DMSE Sports, were tapped by CIC Health to oversee logistics for mass vaccination sites at Gillette Stadium, Fenway Park, Reggie Lewis Center, Hynes Convention Center. [9]
To date, DMSE has helped manage more than 1,400 events throughout the world.
In 2006, McGillivray wrote “The Last Pick” [1] with writer Linda Glass Fechter, chronicling his childhood as the last pick for team sports because of his small stature, telling readers never to underestimate their own ability, and to set goals, not limits. The book also covers his life as an athlete and race director.
In 2018, he and his co-author, Nancy Feehrer, published the first of their illustrated children's books. "Dream Big: A True Story of Courage and Determination " is a nonfiction story about reaching deep and showing extreme determination in the face of doubt, disappointment, and loss. Their second children's book was published in 2019. "Running Across America" chronicles McGillivray's 1978 run across the contiguous United States. In 2021, they published their third illustrated book, "Finish Strong: Seven Marathons, Seven Continents, Seven Days," which tells the adventure of McGillivray's 2019 World Marathon Challenge adventure.
In 2003, McGillivray created the DMSE Children's Fitness Foundation to support non-profit organizations that use running to promote physical fitness in children. [10]
In 2022, the foundation was relaunched as the Dave McGillivray Finish Strong Foundation to "inspire and empower youth across New England and beyond to increase physical activity, expand literacy, and build community and self-esteem though running, reading, and performing acts of kindness." [11]
McGillivray has made 1400 appearances over 40 years as a motivational speaker. He has presented stories and insights from his life in nearly every major U.S. city and has traveled abroad to various countries including Canada, Denmark, England, France, Poland, Sweden, in addition to Bermuda, and the Caribbean.
In 2019, he presented a version of his "Defining Moments" speech in a Ted Talk. [12]
The Boston Marathon is an annual marathon race hosted by several cities and towns in greater Boston in eastern Massachusetts, United States. It is traditionally held on Patriots' Day, the third Monday of April. Begun in 1897, the event was inspired by the success of the first marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics. The Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon and ranks as one of the world's best-known road racing events. It is one of six World Marathon Majors. Its course runs from Hopkinton in southern Middlesex County to Copley Square in Boston.
Frank Charles Shorter is an American former long-distance runner who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. His Olympic success, along with the achievements of other American runners, is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States during the 1970s.
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John Adelbert Kelley was an American long-distance runner who twice represented his native country at the Summer Olympics, in 1936 and 1948, and competed in the Boston Marathon over 50 times, winning in 1935 and 1945. He was often dubbed "Kelley the Elder" to avoid confusion with John J. Kelley, winner of the 1957 Boston Marathon; the two men were not related.
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John J. McDermott was an Irish-American athlete. Nicknamed "J.J." or "little Mac", he won the first marathon run in the United States in 1896, as well as the inaugural Boston Marathon, then known as the B.A.A. Road Race, in 1897. He was a lithographer by trade.
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