MANCHESTER, Conn. — Father and Son Bill and Jeff Billing are back at it, and Uncle Amby Burfoot will join them too – it happens every Thanksgiving morning.
Jeff, Bill, and Amby, all from Mystic, are proof that the family that runs together stays together. All of them have run the Manchester Road Race repeatedly.
For Jeff, the track coach at Hall High School in West Hartford, 2023 will be his 32nd consecutive year running the race, dad Bill is about to run his 51st MRR, and Amby Burfoot – a road racing legend, will run his 61st Manchester Road Race.
“The Manchester Road Race is about family—it sounds cliché but it’s about giving thanks, so every year I come up with my dad and my uncle and we make it around the course together and every year we take a moment and just look around, it’s incredible," Jeff Billing said.
“This is about family and community, it’s a celebration of health and fitness," Bill Billing added,
Now 77 years old, Amby Burfoot, a nine-time Manchester Road Race Champion and the winner of the 1968 Boston Marathon said, “What’s so special about the family running that for Bill and Jeff and me at Manchester is we have been doing this through all the stages of our lives. It’s a tradition and it’s one of those unifying forces in our family.”
Jimmy Altman is a reporter at FOX61 News. He can be reached at jaltman@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
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