(July, 2020) At 85, Larry Cole was the oldest finisher in the 2019 Boston Marathon. His name isn’t listed in the results as he finished after the six-hour cut off. Although he started running in high school, Cole didn’t run a marathon until he was 72. Now 86, Cole, from Harwich MA, has a lot of great running memories. In 2018, he served as co-grand marshal of the Boston Marathon that honored the 100th anniversary of the WW1-era Boston Marathon of 1918. The grand marshals were selected for their past military service. Cole himself served in the Korean War. As an athlete, Cole’s first passion was hockey. He ran just to stay in shape for his favored sport. When he was 82, he finally quit hockey. “My team was better off playing short-handed," he jokes.
Career-profession? I retired in 1997 after a career as an administrator and economics professor at the University of New Hampshire and later an economist in the private sector. I was active in Harwich politics as a selectman and on several committees on Cape Cod. For many years I volunteered to drive disabled veterans to appointments at the Providence VA Medical Center.
When did you start running and why? I started running my senior year at Vermont Academy in the spring of 1951. It was a school requirement to play
