A pair of former Lynnfield High state track champions are taking to the streets come Marathon Monday in the biggest race of their careers.
Twenty-four year old twin sisters Brittany and Gretta Hunt are running in this year’s Boston Marathon as members of the Dana Farber Marathon Marathon Challenge team (DFMC) in honor of their grandfather, Don Hunt, a Lynnfield resident, who’s battling kidney cancer.
Brittany, who ran track and cross country at the University of New Hampshire, applied to run in late September as a member of the DFCM team. After learning that Brittany had been accepted, Gretta joined too.
“I had run a half-marathon but never a full one, and had not trained in four years,” said Gretta, a 2015 graduate of Emmanuel College. “I had always thought it so when Brittany got in, it lit a fire in me, so I applied. I have always loved the marathon and just cannot believe all the energy from the crowds and the runners, it’s just unreal. I get chills just thinking about.”
There’s another reason why Gretta gets chills. Five years ago, she was standing on Boylston Street at the finish line when the bombs went off. She had been watching the race with college friends, but after the group split up, Gretta stayed on by herself to cheer the finishers.
“It was my first Boston Marathon and the race was going fine and I even had a sign that said ‘stay strong.’ I was looking down Boylston and saw the first bomb go off,” Gretta recalled. “Most people didn’t know what happened, but I knew that it was a bomb, so my first instinct was to call my mother (Rose). She was so calm and told me to run so I started running. Most people it seemed just stopped in their tracks.”
While Gretta ran, he head became flooded with emotions.
“I thought ‘where do I run?,'” Gretta said. “So I ran toward a building, but all the time I thought ‘what if I am running toward more bombs?’ I thought I might be buried if there was a bomb in the building. I mean, I was a college sophomore and thought I’m too young to die.”
At home, Hunt’s father, Doug, jumped into his car and sped into Boston to find Gretta at their designated meeting location.
“I was never so happy to see my father in my life,” said Gretta. “He said he made the trip in like 10-12 minutes, but seeing him was just the best. But it was so surreal to see it as it was happening.”
Gretta said she’s still ever vigilant when in a large crowd.
“I am always checking to see how I can get out,” she said. “I definitely am more anxious when I find myself in a closed-in space.”
Both girls have been victimized by their overzealous approach to training for the race. The sisters have both struggled with plantar fasciitis and other injuries that took them off the roads and into the gym.
“We definitely both overdid it but it is so hard to train for it and I have never put this much mileage on my body,” said Brittany. “We both had to take a 2-week layoff, but kept up the training on the bike and in the pool.”
The twins were 3-sport athletes at Lynnfield, playing soccer, basketball and running outdoor track.
Their final season was one for the ages, when the sisters helped lead Lynnfield to the 2011 Division 4 championship meet.
“We knew we had to place and do better than we had ever done before in order to have a shot at winning,” said Brittany. “Nobody was more surprised than we were when we won it. It was really just an incredible experience and a great way to finish our high school careers.”
Both Hunts set personal records in the meet, with Brittany finishing fifth in the mile and pole vault and Gretta finishing fifth in the 400 hurdles.
Brittany ran four years of track and cross country at UNH. She graduated in 2015 and is currently working as a special needs paraprofessional at Huckleberry Hill School while pursuing a masters in moderate disabilities. She resides in Somerville.
Gretta, who resides in Brighton, earned a communications degree at Emmanuel and is currently working as a recruiter for Data Dog, a tech company.
For both girls, finishing means much more than just running 26.2 miles.
“I have seen so many people while on training runs who were injured that day and lost limbs,” Gretta said. “Just last week I was running and saw the dancer who lost her leg running with a prosthetic, and it was really so emotional to see that strength. It’s so important to remember and never forget what happened, just draw strength from seeing how so many have persevered. Turning the corner onto Boylston will be very emotional for me.”
Brittany agreed.
“I know it’s going to feel amazing,” she said. “Gretta said that when you turn that last corner and see the finish line, it was be just incredible. I don’t know whether or not I will run another one, right now I would probably say no, but I am hoping to feel different once I hit that finish line.”
Both girls have raised more than $5,000 for Dana Farber. To make a donation to either campaign, visit the DFMC website at www.rundfmc.org.
