Brookhaven resident Daffany Fajardo Murphy doesn’t have an off switch. The corporate vice president, mom of two adult children, and athlete will complete her sixth major marathon on April 21 in Boston, Mass.
Fajardo Murphy considers the Boston area her hometown. Born in the Dominican Republic, she spent her adolescence in Lawrence, Mass., north of the city. After graduating from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., she started working for Enterprise and moved to metro Atlanta with the company to serve as the Vice President of Human Resources for Enterprise Mobility.
“I love my job. Love it. I’ve been with the company for almost 27 years. I manage a big team. I do a lot of philanthropic work here locally, and for fun I run, travel, read, dance, all the fun things,” she said.
She started running at age 13 because she said she was “overweight [and] getting picked on at school.” She continued running through college, after the birth of her daughter, and she ran her first half marathon when her son, now 20, was six months old.
“That’s what got me hooked,” she said. “I ran my first full [marathon] when I turned 40. I wanted to do something monumental for myself, and I couldn’t think of anything else but a marathon.”
The World Marathon Majors is made up of six races: Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York City and Boston. Fajardo Murphy has specific memories from each marathon.
Chicago was her first race of the majors. It will always have a special place in her heart, she said, in part because of the beautiful weather. She described her 2016 race as “floating on clouds” until she became dehydrated.
“At mile 20 all of a sudden, I had this insatiable desire for salt, so I was literally licking my arm, and I didn’t understand what was going on,” she laughed. “When I finished the race, it was very emotional. I was crying because I was like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m really doing this marathon thing.’”
She ran New York in 2019, Berlin in 2022, and Tokyo and London in 2024. She qualified for the Boston Marathon in 2024, but said “three full marathons, back to back, would have been bonkers.”
The crowd support in Chicago was tenfold in New York, where running across the bridges was hard. She lost a toenail during the race, but she felt energized by several friends who surprised her throughout the course. In Berlin, a former colleague met her to cheer her on.
Then came Tokyo, her fastest major marathon at 3:46. Fajardo Murphy said she can’t wait to go back to Japan.
“The Japanese showed up! It was a very different vibe. Definitely not as rowdy as the other races. They’re very respectful. [The Japanese people] don’t really cheer, but they’re present,” she said.
London was just a couple of weeks later. London is one of the races she said she would run again because the crowd was four or five rows deep across the city. Her daughter, who lives in Spain, came to watch her run.
“It was a perfect day,” she said. “I finished in a good time, but I didn’t check my watch once.”
Fajardo Murphy has saved Boston as a homecoming competition. Along the 26.2-mile route from Hopkinton, Mass. to Copley Square in Boston, she plans to celebrate as she passes by friends and family members from around the world. Held on the third Monday of April, the Boston Marathon is notorious for unpredictable weather; one year it could be 45 degrees and raining, the next it’s 80 with blazing sun.
The Boston Marathon is sponsored in part by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Fajardo Murphy said, as the daughter of a breast cancer survivor, she is running to honor the care provided to her mom, who was diagnosed at 50 years old. She has raised more than $15,000 for Dana-Farber.
“I knew that running Boston would be special in many ways. But most importantly, my mom has never watched me race, and she’ll get to come and watch me,” Fajarado Murphy said.
She’ll end the marathon as she does all of the others, by drinking a cold beer at the finish line, getting a pedicure, and walking around the city.
