While Chicago Marathon didn’t go to plan for every celebrity and athlete who took part — T.J Holmes left the course in an ambulance at mile 21 after injuring his Achilles — it was an incredible day for Claire Holt: the Vampire Diaries star knocked a huge 19 minutes off her previous marathon time, less than a year after giving birth to her third child. Wow!
The actress, 36, ran the epic 26.2 mile race in an impressive 3 hours, 44 minutes and 14 seconds — and raised over $100,000 for Boston Children’s Hospital in the process.
The star of The Originals shared her triumph via Instagram after the race yesterday (October 13), and wrote that she is “going to let myself feel proud”.
“I woke up at 4am all summer to train for this race,” wrote the mom of James, 5, Elle, 4, and Ford, 11 months. “It was really f—ing hard and I asked a lot of my family during those 4 months. I doubted myself more often than not, and I was sick to my stomach at the thought of letting anyone down.”
She needn’t have worried about that — she crushed it! Holt also shared that she celebrated completing the prestigious course with an extremely well-deserved pizza — while wearing her new bling, naturally. “If you think I’m taking this medal off to sleep you’re crazy,” she joked via her Instagram Stories.
Holt ran New York Marathon in 2022 in just over four hours, so to knock almost 20 minutes off her personal best just two years later — not least after another pregnancy and birth — is an epic achievement. “I did it because of the unbelievable generosity of friends, family and kind-hearted strangers,” she said. “I did it because you believed in me, and the cause.”
Holt has previously blogged about her motivation for running marathons, writing last year that having a good reason for running “will keep you going”. “I thought about Romi, the son of my dear friends whose life was saved at Boston Children’s Hospital,” she wrote. “I thought about all the children fighting for their lives. I thought about how many people had donated their hard-earned money. I thought about my awesome husband and kids who cheered me on every step of the way.”
The Mean Girls 2 actress has been married to Andrew Joblon since 2018. The real estate exec shared a selfie with his wife after the race yesterday, declaring her a “legend”. Let’s hope he’s bringing her more pizza in bed today!
