....................480 Adams Street, Suite #208, Milton Massachusetts, USA • 617.696.7758
 
 
 
 

Anchor’s Away
for Bob Halloran

By Phil Perry
Times Staff
4/15/10
Bob Halloran’s only experiences at the Boston Marathon have come in front of a camera. Headphones on, microphone in place, he broadcasted parts of the race standing off the back of a WCVB-TV truck.

That’s all about to change.

The Milton resident and weekend anchor for Boston’s Channel 5 will be running in the 114th Boston Marathon, his first, on Monday, April 19.

Two weeks before the day, he was looking forward to running with the masses instead of calling it for a television audience.

“I could see the crowd but couldn’t hear them,” said Halloran of his time covering the wheelchair portion of the race. “I couldn’t really feel a thing because I was working. The beauty of the marathon is going to be the slow nature of it, the high fives from people.”

Over the course of his career, Halloran has covered stars from Michael Jordan to Tom Brady for outlets such as ESPN, Fox 25 in Boston and now ABC’s affiliate in Boston.

Before he became a television personality, as a student, he was an accomplished athlete himself. He led Mater Dei high school in New Jersey to a parochial “B” tennis state championship as its No. 1 singles player and then went on to play both tennis and golf at Washington and Lee University.

Halloran, 46, began training for the marathon with the new year, three and a half months ago.

“I started playing tennis again and I was losing to people I thought I should beat,” he said. “It was because I was out of shape.”

With that, he began running and soon made it his goal to finish Boston’s longest and most famous race.
He hasn’t taken the task lightly. His training schedule calls for three runs a week, anywhere between five and 20 some-odd miles each, and two days lifting weights in the gym. On his day off, he’ll play tennis.

He drinks electrolyte-rich coconut water, has a special Gatorade powder delivered to his Grafton Avenue home, gulps what he calls energy “goo” packets, and consumes 10 bananas a week, a food he normally avoids but can tolerate as part of a fruit smoothie.

Since January, he’s lost 15 pounds. “That’s the obsession,” he said. “I’m constantly trying to figure out how I’m doing, what I’m supposed to be doing next. Should I eat that? Should I go to bed early? What’s the weather report for tomorrow and should I put up with that?”

The obsessing has paid off. Halloran’s gone from running 10-minute miles in January to hoping for an eight-and-a-half-minute pace on race day. He recently finished a half-marathon in Quincy in one hour, 37 minutes and hopes to finish in less than four hours on Monday.

Halloran credits his work schedule for helping him accommodate his own training demands. Because he usually works weekends as a sports and news anchor, it frees up his week to take long runs and spend more time with his family. He has joined the Lower Mills Running Club and meets with them to go on long runs at 6 a.m. every Saturday – about six hours after his shift at WCVB on Friday night. Still, he hates to miss a day.

“He’s worked really hard and done everything by the book,” said Ted Carroll, co-founder of the Lower Mills Running Club. “Before we met him we thought he might be a little bit uptight, but the TV personality thing never played into it. Now he’s just Bob from the running club.”

Halloran has enjoyed the camaraderie of his new running club friends and enjoys living at his college weight. He plans on continuing to run to stay in shape, but because of the intensity of the training, he feels as though his first marathon could also be his last.

“I hope I stay a runner but lose the obsession. This is a little ridiculous,” he said, laughing. “I expect to be 80 years old someday. I don’t want to be 80 years old and inactive. I want to be on the golf course and playing tennis.”