Grant O’Connor of West Hartford was 28 seconds short of qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2024. At The Marathon Project Dec. 21 in Chandler, Arizona, he made sure he had plenty of extra time.
O’Connor finished the 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 14 minutes, 39 seconds, his personal best, and qualified for the 2028 Olympic Marathon Trials. Alex Norstrom of Glastonbury, the four-time Eversource Hartford Marathon winner, also qualified with a time of 2:15:07. The qualifying time is 2:16 for men.
“We both got PRs and OTQs (Olympic Trial qualifiers),” said O’Connor, 28. “We can enjoy the holidays – the gift of the OTQ.
“I plan to take a bunch more shots at a fast marathon in that time and see what I can bring into the 2028 Trials.”
Their times got local runners talking – is O’Connor the fastest marathoner to live in Connecticut at the time of his race? Bill Rodgers, who grew up in Newington and went to Wesleyan, ran fast marathon times but he lived in Boston in his prime, when he was winning his four Boston Marathons and four New York City Marathons. Other top marathoners have called CT home at one point or another, but moved on to run faster elsewhere.
Amby Burfoot of Mystic marked the 50th anniversary of his first Boston Marathon by running the 119th edition of the race in 2015.
Turns out Rodgers’ Wesleyan roommate, Amby Burfoot, who won the 1968 Boston Marathon, still holds one of the fastest times by a Connecticut resident and is actually ahead of O’Connor with his 2:14:28 performance at the Fukuoka Marathon in Japan in 1968. The time was one second off the American record at the time.
“That shows how legendary Amby is, because the marathon is so different in 2025 compared to 1968,” O’Connor said.
There’s a long list of what is different: training, hydration, fueling, shoes, clothing, support, amateur status – to name a few things.
“We had nothing back then,” said Burfoot, 79, who lives in Mystic and was a schoolteacher in Groton at the time of his 1968 race in Japan. “We didn’t have Gatorade on the course; I’m sure I never drank while I was running the race. We were running in the thinnest, lightest shoe possible back then. It didn’t have a midsole, it was an upper and an outsole, there was no midsole. If you put them next to (today’s shoes), it would be comical.”
So here is the list. It may not have everyone but we did our best. It’s a mix of old and new, and considering how much technology has advanced marathon times (mainly with the new fast shoes), it’s impressive how many runners from the 70s, 80s and 90s are here.
Top 20 fastest marathons by Connecticut residents
(Note: The fastest times by each runner are the times noted here. Some, like John Vitale, ran multiple times under 2:20. Runners had to live in Connecticut at the time of their marathon.)
Tim Ritchie, New Haven: 2:11:56, Dec. 3, 2017, California International Marathon.
Ritchie, who is now a track coach at UMass, won CIM that year and had set the course record at the Hartford Marathon half marathon (1:02:41) two months earlier.
Tim Ritchie celebrates after breaking the course record for the half marathon in 1:02:40 at the 2017 Eversource Hartford Marathon in October. (Cloe Poisson / Hartford Courant)
Chris Zablocki, Essex: 2:13:45, Dec. 3, 2017, California International Marathon
CIM, where he finished eighth, was his 11th marathon of the year.
Chris Zablocki, of Essex, takes a breath after winning the 2017 Eversource Hartford Marathon. (Cloe Poisson / Hartford Courant)
Joe LeMay, Danbury: 2:13:55, Dec. 5, 1999, California International Marathon.
LeMay, who ran an Olympic Trial qualifying time at CIM and was the top American in 1999 at Boston (2:16:11), is now a competitive rower and finished first in his age group in a single at the Head of the Housatonic regatta in 2024.
Amby Burfoot, Mystic: 2:14:28, Dec. 8, 1968, Fukuoka Marathon, Japan.
Burfoot, who won the Boston Marathon in 1968, ran his 63rd straight Manchester Road Race in November at age 79.
Grant O’Connor, West Hartford: 2:14:39, Dec. 21, 2025, The Marathon Project, Chandler, Arizona.
O’Connor was the fifth American finisher at the 2024 Boston Marathon in 2:16:17.
Gerry Vanasse, New Milford: 2:14:49, April 16, 1984, Boston Marathon.
Vanasse finished second at the 1984 Boston Marathon to British Olympian Geoff Smith, who won in 2:10:34.
Alex Norstrom, Glastonbury: 2:15:07, Dec. 21, 2025, The Marathon Project, Chandler, Arizona.
Norstrom and his then-fiancee/now wife Angie won the Eversource Hartford Marathon men’s and women’s titles in 2024 and Norstrom has won four straight Hartford Marathon titles, including the 2023 race, where he finished in 2:16:53, and 2025 (2:19:04).
Norm Higgins, New London, 2:15:52: Dec. 5, 1971, Culver City Marathon, Culver City, Calif.
Higgins went to New York a few weeks before his California race to run what he thought was a 5K in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx but finding no one there, he discovered there was another race in Central Park and went there. It turned out to be the second New York City Marathon and Higgins became the only Connecticut winner of the race in 2:22:54.
Jonas Hampton, New Britain: 2:15:58, Oct. 10, 2015, Hartford Marathon.
Hampton, a University of Hartford graduate, had already qualified for the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials with a half marathon but he figured he should practice doing a marathon first at Hartford and he won it in 2015. His best marathon finish was eighth at the 2020 Olympic Trials in 2:12:10 – however, he lived in Massachusetts at the time.
Jonas Hampton, a former University of Hartford runner, won the 2015 Eversource Hartford Marathon in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 58 seconds. Hampton is from New Britain. (Melanie Stengel/Special to the Courant)
John Vitale, East Haven: 2:16:15, March 18, 1973, Lake Biwa Marathon, Otsu, Japan.
A 1970 UConn graduate, Vitale, who won the Manchester Road Race in 1970, also ran 2:16:17 at the Boston Marathon in 1978 to finish 15th, finished under 2:20 in Boston four times and co-owned a running store in Rocky Hill called The Run In for many years.
Bob Hensley, Milford: 2:16:24, March 1988, Shamrock Marathon, Virginia Beach.
Hensley, who finished Boston in 2:16:50 in 1983, ran at the University of Oregon with Steve Prefontaine and went to four Olympic Trials.
Mike Cotton, New Haven: 2:16:43, May 7, 1989, Pittsburgh Marathon.
At the University of Virginia, Cotton was the second-best collegiate 10,000-meter runner in the country to Alberto Salazar.
Neil Wood, Danbury: 2:17:05, Sept. 25, 1983, Clarence DeMar Marathon, Keene, N.H.
Wood’s time is still the course record at the DeMar Marathon.
Steve Swift, Middletown: 2:17:27, May 2, 1999, UPMC Health System/City of Pittsburgh Marathon.
Swift finished third at Pittsburgh, the U.S. championship race, and qualified for the U.S. marathon team which went to the World Championships in Seville, Spain. He also won $10,000.
Matt Pelletier, Sterling, 2:17:58, Oct. 10, 2015, Eversource Hartford Marathon.
Pelletier, a two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, won the Hartford Marathon in 2014 with a time of 2:17:02 but he lived in Rhode Island at the time; he finished second to Hampton in 2015.
John Raneri, New Fairfield: 2:18:07, Nov. 22, 2015, Philadelphia Marathon.
Raneri was the fourth American (2:14:13) in New York City in 2019 but had moved to Flagstaff by then; he also qualified for the 2024 Olympic Trials with a 2:12:33 in 2022 at CIM.
Tom Harding, Westport: 2:18:24, Nov. 7, 1993, Blue Cross/Blue Shield of RI Marathon, Providence, R.I.
Harding qualified for the1996 Olympic Marathon Trials, where he finished 22nd in 2:19:10.
Michael “Isha” Murphy, Cromwell: 2:18:44, April 17, 1978, Boston Marathon.
Murphy finished 27th and was the second CT finisher at Boston behind Vitale.
Everett Hackett, Hartford: 2:18:53, Dec. 8, 2019, California International Marathon.
Hackett ran at Hall High School, is a two-time Olympic Trials qualifier and now is an assistant coach at the University of Hartford.
Donn Cabral, right, competes in the men’s 3000-meter steeplechase at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, Monday, July 4, 2016, in Eugene Ore. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Donn Cabral, Hartford: 2:19:16, 2018, Honolulu Marathon.
Cabral, who grew up in Glastonbury, was a two-time Olympic steeplechaser.
(Special thanks to Jeff Billing, Grant O’Connor and Amby Burfoot for their help in compiling the list.)