Long Branch runner Jerome Drayton crossing the finish line of the Boston Marathon in first place in 1977.
Local marathoner Jerome Drayton’s love of a girl led him to a successful career in long-distance running that took him to the Olympics and the famed Boston Marathon.
Drayton, 79, became of the 16th and last Canadian to win the annual 127-year old Boston street race in 1977.
In the end the girl, then a student of Mimico High School, spurned him but Drayton kept up his love of competitive running for more than 20 years.
Drayton has won dozens of races; including the Fukuoka International Marathon in Japan, which he won three times. He also placed second in the New York City Marathon in 1975 and placed sixth in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
Runner Jerome Drayton (top second from left) on the Etobicoke Wall of Fame on Sixth Street.
He has lived in South Etobicoke since 1957, first for decades in Mimico, before moving a couple years ago to New Toronto.
You may have passed by his portrait many times as it is painted with other high-achieving residents on a Lake Shore Village BIA Wall of Fame, which graces the side of a pharmacy on Sixth Street.
Drayton, originally of Russia, is known around the world for his prowess in running the marathon, which are all the same length of 26.2 miles or 42.2 kilometers.
“The Boston Marathon was a tough race,” he recalls. “The race often intrigued me as it had not been won by a Canadian since 1948.”
Jerome Drayton (right) being inducted in the Canada Sports Hall of Fame.
The New Toronto resident beat thousands of top runners in the Boston race to make it to the finish line in 2 hours, 14 minutes and 16 seconds. Canadian Gerard Cote won the event four times in the 1940s.
Drayton said the Montreal Olympics and the Japanese Marathons were other major and high-profile races which featured many elite runners competing.
“I loved the running which I did for enjoyment,” he says. “I also loved travelling to different places to race.”
Back then there was no prize money for winning races as there is now, he notes.
During the day he worked downtown for the Ontario Government as a Sports and Recreation Fitness Consultant, in which he helped organize amateur sports groups and aided them to obtain funding.
Jerome in a recent photo has won dozens of awards for running and his portrait in painted on an Etobicoke Wall of Fame on Sixth Street.
“I trained for hours twice a day back then,” Drayton says. “I would run in the morning for about an hour and go back out in the evening for another hour.”
He retired from the sport in 1983 after putting in thousands of miles in practice and competitive running.
Drayton likes the South Etobicoke area which he says has not changed that much but the people has over the years.
“It is a good place to live,” he says. “We have a lot of good people down here.”
Drayton doesn’t run these days as he suffers from arthritis in one knee, which makes it painful.
The former marathoner is still sharp and remembers his races, when and whom he competed against long ago.