At Monday’s 130th Boston Marathon, the weather gods smiled, giving runners near-perfect conditions for running fast. Course records were shattered, and Team JAMBAR athlete Joe Klecker, running only his second marathon, put in an incredible performance to place 13th in 2:05:56. This was almost five minutes faster than his marathon debut at the 2025 NYC Marathon, where he ran 2:10:37 for a top-10 finish. Just how impressive was the field? Five Americans broke 2:06. Before this week, only four Americans had ever run a sub-2:06 marathon on any course. Six of the ten fastest U.S. times in race history were clocked on Monday.
Joe, a member of ON Athletic Club who trains in Boulder with coach Dathan Ritzenhein, was coming off a top-10 performance at last month’s NYC half-marathon. “Doing a marathon build for a second time, I’m learning where I can really push things in training. In Colorado, we did lots of hills and also finished with downhill running to mimic the demands of the course,” said Joe. “Last month’s half was a good indicator that my training was going well. After that race, we came to Boston for three days to get some practice on the course so I could feel it and visualize the race. I’m really happy with my final time and how the race felt.”
JAMBAR’S HISTORY WITH THE BOSTON MARATHON
The Boston Marathon - the world’s oldest and most prestigious annual marathon - holds a special place in the hearts of many runners, and JAMBAR’s founder Jenny Maxwell is no exception. Her late husband Brian, with whom she founded PowerBar, was the third-ranked marathoner in the world in 1977, and finished third at the Boston Marathon that year. The idea for starting PowerBar, the first energy bar, came from Brian’s search for a digestible source of energy and Jenny’s background as a runner and food scientist.
Jenny and Brian’s children inherited their parents’ love of running. Christopher, an avid competitor with a marathon PR of 2:18:16, has run Boston four times, each with his mother cheering him on. When he ran the Boston Marathon 20 years ago, Runner’s World wrote a story documenting the Maxwell family’s history with the race and how Christopher was continuing his father’s legacy.
“The Boston Marathon epitomizes elite competition and resilience. This is the course where Katherine Switzer became the first woman to officially run the marathon, paving the way for women’s equality in sports,” said Jenny. “It was where my late husband Brian ran his fastest race and where my son competed a number of times. All of us at JAMBAR were cheering on Joe and were thrilled with his race and the fact that he cut almost five minutes off his personal best. What a performance!”