Leicester mom joins 3 daughters in 128th Boston Marathon Monday
LEICESTER — Even in the early stages of spring, it's never too early to start planning for the holidays.
Yup, those holidays.
Sisters Jen and Michelle Pajer, who grew up in Leicester and now share an apartment in Allston on Commonwealth Avenue, were all set to return to the Boston Marathon after requalifying last year. Youngest sister Kaitlyn, who pursued qualifying last fall, had four old college friends training for the April extravaganza, and she wanted in.
And mom Karen, never to shy away from a long-distance challenge, figured she might as well, making it a Pajer Four.
"I normally don't like marathons, but if three of my kids are going to do it, why not," Karen said. "The photos will make for a great Christmas card."
Kaitlyn and Karen Pajer have entry bibs granted to Central Mass. Striders, for extensive volunteer efforts, and they'll join Jen and Michelle on Monday running the 128th Boston Marathon, in the centennial of the event using Hopkinton as the starting point.
"It's kind of a neat thing to get us all together like this, but the other thing I guess is it takes a marathon to do it," said Karen Pajer (pronounced PAH-yer), who ran her only other Boston in 2012 as a novice. She since has taken her comfortable pace through scores of local road races, before turning in a 3:58 marathon in Providence in 2018.
"It just seems like it would be the only opportunity that this could happen, so you might as well take it," said daughter Michelle, 26, who's coming off a 3:09 perfomance in January in the Houston Marathon, a qualifying time for the 2025 Berlin Marathon, a world major.
"You just don't know how often it could be for all of us to get in the same year," said Jen Pajer, 28, who finished Boston in 3:12 last year.
The four will be running not together but at their own pace, yet nonetheless proud of this strong family showing.
"We might see each other in Hopkinton," said Karen Pajer, who with Scott Schaeffer-Duffy ran each street in Worcester and a 5K in each town in Massachusetts, completing impressive projects in 2021 and 2022, respectively.
"It's pretty cool," Kaitlyn Pajer, 24, said of the prospect of four Pajers listed on the screen when friends and family track their progress April 15. "I liked seeing (Jen and Michelle) run last year together, and seeing the pictures of them picking up the bibs, going to the expo and experiencing it together, and I figured that would be pretty cool to be doing that with them this year."
Jen and Michelle Pajer, like Kaitlyn and older sister Samantha, starred in cross-country and track at Leicester High School, and ran for the track club at UMass. The current roommates train with Tracksmith, which has a retail outlet located near the finish of the Marathon on Newbury Street. They take part in long runs originating from Newbury on Wednesday evenings and track workouts Sunday mornings at MIT.
"One of the things that made it so fun last year was that so many people from our club were doing Boston," Jen said, "like 10 people that we were close to were talking about our workouts leading up to race day."
Jen and Michelle were ready to re-up right after impressing in Boston last year, Jen in 3:12, Michelle in 3:16, "It was so much more fun than I thought it would be," said Jen, whose personal best of her three shots at 26.2 miles is 3:10 in Providence.
"The reason to do Boston over and over again is there's always a huge community of people," said Michelle, a veteran of seven marathons, including two live Bostons and the 2020 virtual, "and Mom was volunteering at the starting line, so we got to see her before we started."
"And trust me," said Karen who accompanied the CMS bus last April, "It wasn't easy finding them in the crowd; I caught them just as they were about to start."
This is the first Boston, third maration overall for Kaitlyn, whose tops is 3:48 last year at Charles River, The former Westfield State trackster, who is nursing a knee injury, lives at home while attending Lasell University for grad school in athletic administration and working as an athletic trainer at Auburn High. She has enjoyed an occasional run with her mom while training.
"She loves people to run with," Kaitlyn said. "I think we have a faster, more natural pace than her, but she does enjoy when we do run with her. I've learned slower isn't always a bad thing always. I can appreciate an easier pace."
None of the Pajers' participation would be at all possible if not for the family patriarch's past progress on the pavement. While John Pajer was heating up the local 5K scene and running Bostons as a qualifier in 2010, 2011 and 2012, his four daughters ran like dad in many of those area races, with Karen also catching the bug,
Samantha, 30, graduated from Framingham State and now lives in Brooklyn while working in the fashion industry and still enjoying a 5K race now and them.
"I don't know how soon I would have tried if he wasn't running when we were in middle school," Michelle said.
"He's probably the main reason I run at all," Jen added "I don't think any of us would've known it was, like, a sport."
"And you wouldn't have found what natural ability you would have had to do it," chimed in Mom.
"I'm very proud of them, really for just the work ethic," said John Pajer, the West Boylston High softball coach who now prefers the shorter distances and the trails. "Running's not easy, you put a lot of work into it."
"It would've been even cooler if John was still running, and if he could've got in," Karen said, "but he just doesn't do those distances anymore.
"This marathon stuff," she added, "it's a lot of work to train, those four months of constant every day."
Goals are varied for the Pajer Four. "It's like a victory lap for me because I just trained and raced really hard in Houston," said Michelle, who still is expected to run a competitive 26.2.
"I want to do faster than last year," said Jen, who did best Michelle by four minutes at last year's Boston, via differing strategies — Jen taking on a constant pace throughout the marathon, while Michelle started slower while picking up the pace in the latter stages.
"I want to break 4 (hours)," said Kaitlyn. "I was hoping for about 4½," Karen said, "but realistically about my training, it looks like it's going to be more around 5."
John Pajer wants to see one of his daughters break his family marathon standard, of 2:54:58, set in 2010 at Boston. He qualified for that event with his performance the year before at the Clarence DeMar Marathon in New Hampshire.
"I'm rooting for one of these guys to beat this," he said, hoping it comes on any marathon course.
"It won't be in Boston," quipped Michelle, who's the closest, about 10 minutes away.
John Pajer, ever the coach and dad, mused with a chuckle.
"Not with that attitude," knowing well such a pursuit by his daughters is within reach.
Contact John Conceison at john.conceison@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @ConceisonJohn.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Karen Pajer joins daughters Jen, Michelle Kaitlyn in Boston Marathon
