By Ian Thomsen
About 30,000 athletes from more than 100 countries will be participating Monday in the 128th running of the Boston Marathon.
Awaiting their arrival just beyond the finish line will be about 100 physical therapists, including 25 or more students — many of them from Northeastern University.
“I’m a huge runner myself, so I love running and I love the marathon,” says Shira Weiner, a Northeastern physical therapy student who will be volunteering at the Boston Marathon for the fourth time. “It’s just such a fun environment to see all these runners after they finish.
“It’s not like a chore for me to volunteer. I have fun.”
One of Weiner’s Northeastern professors, David Nolan, oversees the physical therapy care operation for the Boston Marathon. He is in charge of five medical areas arrayed just beyond the finish line.
“If we were to treat 1,000 people, that would be a ‘slow’ day,” says Nolan, an associate clinical professor at Northeastern’s Department of Physical Therapy, Movement and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Nolan and his team serve as volunteers. The medical staff began meeting in November to plan for the marathon, and Nolan finalized his team in early February. He acknowledges that his selections tend to favor Northeastern students, who are each paired with a licensed physical therapist on race day.
