After the Boston Marathon, the clam chowder ritual begins

“I ate that chowder in record speed … Two personal records in one day!”

Evan Wood, 32, of New York ran the 2026 Boston Marathon. (Photo collage by Annie Jonas/Boston.com Staff)

Evan Wood does things a little differently on Marathon Monday.

The 32-year-old New Yorker has developed a unique tradition to celebrate running the Marathon each year: eating a quart of clam chowder.

This year marks the third time Wood has taken on New England’s favorite soup in heaping quantities, continuing a ritual he started, and repeated in 2023. The question, of course, is how it began.

Evan Wood ran the 2026 Boston Marathon. *(Annie Jonas/Boston.com Staff)*

After the first two Boston Marathons, he said, “I was shivering to death and love clam chowder a little too much.”

So after finishing the 2026 Boston Marathon in 2 hours, 37 minutes and 43 seconds — a personal record — Wood was famished.

He returned to his hotel to shower, change into normal clothes and eat a sandwich (he had to eat something, he admitted), before heading to Legal Sea Foods in Downtown Crossing.

Evan Woods ate a quart of clam chowder outside of Legal Seafood in Downtown Crossing after finishing the 2026 Boston Marathon on April 20, 2026. *(Photo courtesy of Evan Wood)*

The “light jog into Boston,” he joked, was the most unhinged part of his day, followed by the quart of clam chowder — $29.96 worth.

“I ate that chowder in record speed,” he said. “Two personal records in one day!”

Annie Jonas is a Community writer at Boston.com. She was previously a local editor at Patch and a freelancer at the Financial Times.

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