By the time most former star athletes turn 33 — approximately 15 years after they have graduated high school — they often become the embodiment of Bruce Springsteen’s song “Glory Days,” encapsulated brilliantly in the following lyrics: “Well time slips away and leaves you with nothing mister but boring stories of glory days.”

Yeah, they’ll pass you by, Springsteen belts out forcefully in his hit song. Fortunately for runners, glory days don’t have to reside in the past, dredged up predictably at high school reunions or — again, from The Boss’ song — in some barroom conversation over beers. No, runners can continue to reinvent themselves in varying stages of adulthood.

Such is the case for Laura McCloskey Green, a 2004 John Jay High School athlete. During her time at John Jay, McCloskey was a standout for the Patriots in basketball, soccer, cross-country and track. She went on to run cross-country and track at Northeastern University in Boston.

And post-collegiately, she morphed into a competitive endurance athlete, completing numerous marathons and long trail races. Last month’s Boston Marathon represented a new phase in her ever-evolving athletic career — her first marathon after having a baby. She finished Boston in 3:47:10 — slower than her previous marathons, but with a new appreciation for her continued dedication to the sport.

“I started running marathons after college when I needed some sort of athletic challenge that also had nothing to do with the track,’’ she said in an email interview. “I don’t think runners ever truly stop running, so road races naturally were the next step. It also helps coming from a running family and I wanted to take down my older sister’s PRs (Personal Records) as quickly as possible.’’

The 2019 race was a homecoming for McCloskey, a physical therapist who lived in San Francisco for the past five years before moving back to the Boston area several months ago. She qualified for Boston at the California International Marathon in December 2017. She gave birth to her son Jack in September and resumed training for Boston in December.

“This year I never truly built up my mileage enough to even have a proper taper, so I was treating it like a long run,’’ she said. “In the last year, my husband and I moved across the country (back to Boston), had a baby boy, and this felt like a beautiful and fun way to truly reconnect with the city I’m once again calling home. This was my victory lap.’’  

Because she went to Northeastern, McCloskey admitted that she naturally gravitates toward the uniqueness of the Boston Marathon.

“Every Boston Marathon has been completely different and I think that’s why people love coming back to it,’’ she said. “You never know what you’re going to get.”

McCloskey’s description of the varying weather conditions she and the other marathoners endured this year was quite entertaining. From the heavy downpours boarding the busses to the start at Hopkinton, to the steamy feeling inside the busses (felt like a “rainforest,” she said), to the gradual increase in warmth and humidity throughout the race — peaking as she climbed Heartbreak Hill — the race was everything she remembered and more.

“It was the most quintessential New England spring day,’’ she said.

Because she was relatively undertrained, McCloskey took a conservative approach to her pacing. Early on in the race, she was holding back her pace so much that she said it felt like the entire race field was passing her by during the first five miles, which are mostly downhill. At mile 15, she connected with her family, gave her baby — affectionately known as the “Green Monster” — a kiss and continued on her way.

McCloskey stopped again at mile 18 to meet up with a crew from the November Project, a really neat community-based workout collaboration that has groups in 49 communities around the world. She met her husband through the project while living in San Francisco. After stopping there, she admitted it was difficult to get the gears going again in the heat, humidity and hills during the latter stages of the race.

She noted that like most runners who cross the finish line, rather than be content with the enormity of the effort, McCloskey felt compelled to tell anyone who would listen that she was just several months post-partum and that may have affected her finishing time.

She recounted her post-race internal/external dialog at the finish line: “Did you know I just had a baby? That’s why I’m slow. Maybe next time I’ll spray paint that on my shirt.”

McCloskey trained in the predawn hours through the freezing Boston winter, with the November Project. She traded off mornings with the group with her husband Connor.

“Since running is the only thing that made me feel like myself after having a baby, Connor was extra supportive in getting me out the door,’’ she said. “I am genuinely a better human after I run, which also makes me a better mom. So it didn’t matter if there were blistering winds and freezing rain, it was getting done.’’

Just like her 2019 Boston Marathon. 

Mid-Hudson Road Runners Club member Pete Colaizzo, the track coach at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, writes on running every week in Players. He can be reached at runhed246@hotmail.com. For more club information, go to www.mhrrc.org