The Build to Boston: Run’s in the family for Jeffrey Denny
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Jeffrey Denny and his brother, Brian, have run more miles together than many D3 runners will run in their entire collegiate careers.
“We tried to do the math one time,” Denny said. “It’s somewhere between 10 and 20,000 at this point.”
On Marathon Monday, the date of the 130th iteration of the renowned Boston Marathon, the Denny brothers – or “Team Denny” as they’ve been called ever since their dad made matching shirts for an ALS walk for his grandpa naming them such – will line up for their sixth marathon and their second Boston Marathon together.
Denny explained that running with his brother makes it easier to get out of bed in the morning, a task that looms even greater on the dark and dreary days marking winters just outside of Indianapolis, where the two of them train. Even when they’re not running together, Brian is there. When Denny was in the final mile of a low-key tune-up half marathon in Carmel, Ind. a few weekends ago, there was Brian in 35-degree weather with a double stroller for his kids yelling to Denny, “Drive, drive! Get up the hill and finish!”
The miles they share carry a torch that was lit generations before they were even born. Their great grandfather was a runner with a 30-years-lasting memorial run called the Denny Memorial named after him. Their grandfather, who started the memorial run, was a runner. Their father, David Denny, was a runner and 4:01 miler in the early 80’s. Naturally, Brian and Jeffrey became runners, too.
Though they grew up immersed in running, making annual appearances to watch their dad run the Cincinnati Flying Pig, one particular memory has stuck with Denny for 25 years. The family all traveled to Boston together to watch his father run the 2001 Boston Marathon.
“I still remember to this day, we stayed at the Embassy Suites on the corner of Boylston, and the New York Yankees were in our hotel, so I got to meet some of the Yankees,” Denny recollected. “I got to see [my dad] finish and thought that was really cool.”
A few years later, Brian started running cross country, and Denny, a soccer player at the time, eventually traded cleats for spikes when he too found his passion on the cross country course. He dropped his 5k PR a full two and a half minutes from his sophomore to his senior year while running for Colerain High School in Cincinnati where he grew up.
Both brothers went on to run in college. Brian followed in their father’s footsteps and ran for University of Evansville, while Jeffrey, the younger of the two, decided to walk onto the team at Miami of Ohio. He soon realized the training program at Miami was not the right fit and ended up at D3 Ohio Northern per a suggestion from his high school coach, Mark Bierkan, who was an ONU alum and had run for Head Coach Jason Maus.
“Jeffrey was a fantastic teammate during his time at ONU,” Maus said. “He wasn't afraid to put in the work, and he was really committed to the team and the sport. Oftentimes, he was more excited about his teammates' success than he was his own.”
Celebrating others came naturally to Denny, and, as expected, he made lasting friendships and memories while at ONU as a result. He likened his running relationship with his college teammates to that with his brother.
“When you've run so many miles with someone, like with teammates at Ohio Northern, you know everything about them and you want to see them do well just as much as they want you to do well,” Denny said.
When Denny graduated from ONU in 2014, Brian signed him up for the Chicago Marathon as a graduation gift, and the Team Denny marathon saga began. Chicago was their first marathon together. Off of collegiate 10k training and just a sprinkle of beginner’s luck, Denny ran 2:29:27 with negative splits and realized he just might have some potential at this distance.
Jeffrey and Brian running the 2014 Chicago Marathon. Photo submitted by Jeffrey Denny.
In the years following this performance, bouts with injury and burnout kept him far away from personal bests, and he was ready to end his post-collegiate running career with one final bucket-list race: the Boston Marathon. It was 2019, and after that race, Denny would never be the same.
“I fell in love with everything about the Boston Marathon, and it rejuvenated my spirit to keep running,” Denny said. Now, Denny is training for his fourth Boston Marathon.
He describes it as “the Superbowl of running” and recognizes that it will be particularly special this year because of who will be there with him: his college teammate, Cully Gordon, who will race after he watched Denny run his last Boston in 2024 and caught the marathon bug as a result; his brother’s wife, who ran Boston with Denny in 2019 and was the only one who missed the trip in 2021 after the birth of their first child; his fiancée Sayeh, who will watch Denny run a marathon for the first time; his mom and dad, who inspired Denny for the first time 25 years ago with a trip to Boston when his dad ran the race; and of course, his brother, Brian.
“I don't know how many siblings can say they can line up with their brother at the starting line,” Denny said. “I push him, and he pushes me. He's always been my biggest cheerleader.”
Though Denny’s cheer section will be loud this year, some cheerleading voices around Heartbreak Hill will not come from the crowd but from Denny’s mind as he remembers the generations of Denny runners that came before him.
He smiled when he remembered weekends when he was still in college. Sundays were long run days but also the day for Denny family lunches, and the two weren’t mutually exclusive. Denny and Brian would walk into the door, and typical family greetings were replaced with questions about the morning’s long run. “How many miles are you on this week?” Someone would ask. “18 miles,” Denny would reply. At the answer, Denny’s grandma would scold them for running too far and joke that the brothers were trying to be faster than their dad.
Their grandparents’ house even sometimes served as the designated 12-mile aid station on their 20-mile route around Cincinnati after a phone call the previous night prompted Gatorade out front at the coordinated stopping time.
Both grandparents have passed since those days, but Denny is left with an appreciation for how his whole family has always supported his running.
“When you have a bad race, people will be like, ‘well that's faster than I could ever run a half marathon or marathon,’ and while that's true, I've been getting up at 5 a.m. every day to run 10 miles or more for the last six months and that's not what I was trying to do,” Denny said.
“Luckily, the family knew. If we did have a bad race and the next day go over there for lunch, I'd be like, ‘okay, yes guys, I ran poorly yesterday.’ We don't have to tiptoe around it. It's just a really cool support system.”
That support system will be out in full strength as the whole family comes together just like they did to watch Denny’s dad in 2001. This time, though, it’ll be the younger generation of Denny’s on the start line.
Denny is hoping for his best race yet. He’s logged 90-mile weeks, learned from his younger years to back off when he needs to, and he thinks he has a sub-2:28 in his legs. The key will be exercising the patience he’s built up from over a decade of post-collegiate marathon running and making sure to have fun along the way. Decent weather won’t hurt, either.
Winning the Wrigleyville 5k in September 2025. Photo submitted by Jeffrey Denny.
“I was proud of him then and I’m really proud of him now for his commitment and dedication to running,” Maus said. “He's overcome injuries, setbacks, and the challenges that life throws at you as you age. But he's kept running as a priority in his life, which is something special. No matter what happens, he'll have fun, he'll give it everything he's got, and he'll keep grinding.”
Denny asserted that he’ll know it’s time to stop running when it’s no longer fun. He doesn’t know what the future holds, but he knows that day has not yet come. For now, he’s all in on Boston.
“Turning left on Boylston, the emotions, the crowd, just makes it all worth it,” Denny said. “How do I explain the Boston Marathon in less than 30 seconds? What that means to me, my family, my friends that still support me. You can't. Until someone sees it, I just don't think they understand it.”
