At 5:29pm on Monday 21 April, Rayna Burke crossed that famous finish line on Boylston Street. Although she didn’t know it at the time, the Boston native was the final verified finisher of the 2025 Boston Marathon.
That may sound strange, as Burke wasn’t, in fact, the last person to cross the finish line or receive a medal for completing this year’s edition of the Boston Marathon. However, under a new policy set by the race organiser, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA), the 35-year-old was the final person to clock an ‘official’ race result.
This BAA policy, which came into action for the first time this year, states that Boston Marathon finish times would only be recorded until 5:30pm on race day. In previous years, official results were tracked until six hours after the last runner crossed the start line. This previous six-hour rule was controversial, since runners were unaware of the exact time that they had to beat in order to claim an official time. A 5:30pm cut-off, meanwhile, would hopefully bring clarity to runners on the borderline.
Coming into the marathon, Burke’s goal wasn’t to hit the 5:30pm cut-off – her aim was to complete the course in around five-and-a-quarter hours. Instead, she finished in 6:05:40.
In the closing miles, Burke said that hitting the cut-off was a ‘last ditch goal’ after she saw the blue sweeper car informing runners that 5:30pm was approaching.
‘In my mind, I thought, “I want to be an official finisher”,’ she told Runner’s World just after completing the race. Again, runners who crossed the finish line after 5:30pm still received medals, but not official times.
Burke finished just a half-step behind Boston Marathon debutant Simone Ciabattoni, who finished in a net time of 6:04:54. He and his wife, Tatiana Brustolon, had travelled from Italy to run the race, which was the final leg of their quest to complete the original six Abbott World Marathon Majors (AWMM).
To complete the AWMM series and earn a Six Star Finisher medal, runners are required to record official results at all six races. With that in mind, Ciabattoni – who had been chasing the medal since 2010, when he ran the Join our pre-London Marathon shakeout run – attained a Boston Marathon time with just seconds to spare. He and Brustolon, who ran 6:04:44 at this year’s Boston Marathon and assessed the course as ‘very hard’, have run 28 marathons together.
Burke admitted that part of the reason she ended up finishing so close to 5:30pm was that she was having so much fun on the course.
‘I was high-fiving every single cute kid. I had probably five run clubs that I stopped to say hello to,’ she said. ‘I’m from Boston, so this is my home.’
It was news to Burke after the race that she was the last official finisher. Although she was proud of her effort, she still feels that the cut-off time is ‘kind of arbitrary’ now.
‘It feels cool [to be the last official finisher], because it was a goal in my mind,’ she said. ‘That said, there were so many people behind me that gave their heart out there.’
