Jonathon Piesik, far right, runs the Sugarloaf Marathon on May 12, 2024. Piesik finished in 2:45:40 to qualify for the Boston Marathon. He will compete in Boston on Monday. Photo courtesy Jonathon Piesik

It’s amazing what we inherit from our parents. A gesture we make when we’re excited, or a love for a certain band.

Cumberland native Jonathon Piesik knows exactly why he’s running the Boston Marathon on Monday. He’s carrying on the family tradition.

Piesik’s mother, Jen Piesik, has eight Boston Marathons on her running resume, most recently last year.

“She’s my big inspiration, for sure. She’s run close to 30 marathons at this point,” said Piesik, 22. “She ran every day for three years straight.”

Each of those miles sparked something in her son. It takes dedication to be a runner. It takes a discipline that can envelop your entire life.

“I sort of fell in love with it,” Piesik said.

Piesik played soccer and baseball in his days at Greely High. He would do some distance running as a way to stay in shape in the summer, an occasional 7-mile run, he said. When he enrolled at Northeastern, where he’s a senior preparing to graduate in a few weeks with a degree in finance and a minor in data science, Piesik decided to take running more seriously.

In 2023, Piesik ran the Maine Coast Marathon, finishing in 3 hours, 6 minutes and 34.

“It was really hard, one of the hardest things I’ve done. It was 80 degrees when I finished. It taught me a lot of good lessons. Hydration and nutrition are so important. You’ve got to get the electrolytes in,” Piesik said.

That first marathon was hard, but not discouraging. Last year, he ran the Sugarloaf Marathon, and his 2:45:40 finish qualified Piesik for Boston. So the training began, and as with his first two marathons, he followed mom’s advice to the letter.

“Follow a plan and be consistent,” Piesik said. “Get out there every day.”

Jonathon Piesik poses with his mother, Jen, at the Sugarloaf Marathon last May. Jonathon will run his first Boston Marathon on Monday. Jen has run the race eight times. Photo courtesy Jen Piesik

So you run when you feel good and when you feel lousy. Even if you don’t check the days off until the race on a calendar, you do it in your head. Your body tells you if you’re approaching readiness, or if you’re brain is performing an illusion. A few miles in on race day, your body will know if your brain is trying to pull a fast one, and it will have none of it. It will rebel. So you run the miles.

Piesik trains. He runs while he’s at school in Boston. He runs when he’s visiting home in Maine. He ran when he was on the West Coast in that other Portland serving an internship with Alkali Partners, a technology investment banking firm. He’ll start a full-time job with the firm in September.

“It’s been good. It’s definitely hard to be a college student to get in 50 miles a week,” Piesik said.

Follow a plan. Be consistent.

With the race just a few days away, memories of watching his mom compete come easily. She ran it in 2005, pregnant with his younger brother, when he was 2 years old. That one Piesik doesn’t remember. But he remembers 2014, the year after the bombing.

“That was a really meaningful time for us,” he said.

More recently, he knew to check the app that tracks the progress of runners before scouring the sea of faces running by to find his mom. Piesik and his family try to get close to the finish line. Maybe not right to the crowds that jam the race’s final quarter mile, but a spot in Kenmore Square, where they can make sure to get a good view of everyone running past.

Sugarloaf is a mountain course, but it has more descents than climbs and is net downhill from Eustis to Kingfield, south on Route 27. Boston is harder, Piesik said, in part because of the ups and downs and in part because of the logjam of runners. It can be hard to get around packs of runners, slowing you down.

However, he has a goal time in mind.

“I’d love to be under 2:50,” he said.

With days before the race, Piesik’s diet is what he calls “simple food.” Pasta, chicken, rice and sweet potatoes. Food is a carb delivery system, stoking the engine that will get him from Hopkinton to Boylston Street, past the cheering students at Wellesley College and Boston College, and up and over Heartbreak Hill for just over 26 miles.

“I’m counting each carb, in terms of grams,” Piesik said.

Each of those grams will pay off Monday morning, shortly after 10 a.m., when Piesik takes that first step over the starting line. Each step will be a tribute to his mother and he follows her example.