6 majors, 1 finish line: B.C. runner completes global marathon quest<\/p>\n
Published 10:35 am Monday, May 18, 2026<\/p>\n
When he crossed the finish line at the 130th annual Boston Marathon on April 20, Ceevacs Roadrunner David Sykes earned the Six Star Medal for completing the Abbott World Marathon Majors.<\/p>\n
Established in 2016, the medal honours runners who complete the original six major marathons: Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York.<\/p>\n
The 71-year-old Cowichan Valley resident is one of roughly 1,200 Canadians to achieve the feat.<\/p>\n
Sykes said he likes running \u201cbecause it\u2019s a goal to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoy running. You feel pretty good after \u2014 that you ran a marathon,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd that\u2019s as much fun as running the marathon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sykes finished Boston, the last and arguably most prestigious race of the Big Six, with a time of 4:42:02. He was 204th in his division but he\u2019s not racing so much for time anymore \u2014 just for the experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to run and see the world,\u201d he said. \u201cI have no plans to stop. I\u2019m 71 but I don\u2019t feel 71.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sykes didn\u2019t start running seriously until he was in his early 50s. He\u2019d moved to Pender Island from back east and ran the local Terry Fox run. From there he and some others created a running club on the small Gulf Island.<\/p>\n
His first marathon was the Edge-to-Edge event in Tofino\/Ucluelet in 2008. He has put in a lot of kilometres since then.<\/p>\n
Sykes moved to the Cowichan Valley and joined the Ceevacs Roadrunners in 2017. He runs about four days a week and also weight trains. His runs with Ceevacs are usually on Tuesdays and Saturdays.<\/p>\n
\u201cDavid is a humble, highly motivated runner and a quiet leader in the running community,\u201d said Ceevacs coach, Sheron Chrysler. \u201cCompleting the six Abbott World Marathon Majors is an incredible feat. Running even one marathon takes immense dedication and training, but six world marathons is on another level.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted that earning the Six Star Medal in Boston wasn\u2019t planned, but it feels like fate for him to finish with the marathon.<\/p>\n
Sykes completed New York in 2010, Chicago in 2018, and Berlin in 2019. He\u2019d planned to run Boston next but COVID-19 put the kibosh on that. Instead he ran Tokyo in 2023 and London in 2024. This year it was finally Boston.<\/p>\n
He said he has a special memory for every one of the major races but his favourite race was probably Berlin, where he finished in his fastest time of 3:48. He also fondly recalls qualifying for Boston and laughs about his memory from the Big Apple.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy memory for New York was I was hoping to go under four hours and right at the end somebody got in my way,\u201d he said. \u201cI crossed the line and looked up at my time: 4:00:00.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sykes said it wasn\u2019t technically under four hours, but he was OK with that.<\/p>\n
He also has the distinction of having run the Sydney Marathon, after it became the seventh Abbott World Marathon Majors, which he did in August 2025.<\/p>\n
Fewer than 200 Canadians have completed all seven.<\/p>\n
While there are no special accolades for running the seven major marathons, soon there will be a medal for running nine, and Sykes has a goal to earn it.<\/p>\n
Races in Cape Town and Shanghai are next to be certified Abbott World Marathon major races and Sykes has them both on his schedule.<\/p>\n
He is hoping the upcoming marathon in South Africa on May 24 will count toward his next medal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m keeping my fingers crossed it\u2019ll actually be a full fledged star,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also hoping that by the time he gets to China in 2027, that race will also count and upon completion, he\u2019ll have earned the nine-race medal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"6 majors, 1 finish line: B.C. runner completes global marathon quest Published 10:35 am Monday, May 18, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-679432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}