As Gianna Peko pushed her weary body through Central Park toward the New York City Marathon finish line, nearly five hours after she began the race on Staten Island, the magnitude of her accomplishment hit her.
“It’s hard to explain the feeling of seeing that countdown of 400 meters, and then 200 meters,” said Peko, who was running her first full marathon. “That race was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it was also the most gratifying. A long victory lap is how I would describe it.”
Three years after having life-changing excision surgery for endometriosis that had gone undiagnosed for more than a decade, Peko was one of 50 members of EndoFound’s Team EndoStrong to run the race on Nov. 2. They’ve collectively raised almost $280,000 (with donations still coming in), surpassing last year’s record total of $225,000. Each runner had a goal of raising $5,000. Peko led the board, raking in more than $15,500.
“Everyone worked astronomically hard to train for the race and reach their fundraising goal,” said Clare Murphy, in her third year as Team EndoStrong’s coordinator. “To have a team of 50 runners who all understood that they were running for a cause that continues to need vital funds, awareness, and research was incredible and inspiring.”
The 2025 marathon was the largest in history with 59,226 runners from 130 countries. More than $80 million was raised for charities this year, bringing the total to $600 million since 2006. This was EndoFound’s eleventh consecutive year as a charity partner with the marathon.
Caeli Jojola, a second-year law student at Harvard University, raised $6,200 in what was her first marathon. She’s had two endometriosis surgeries, the most recent one three years ago. Though she still experiences pain each month and may eventually need another surgery, she was determined to run the marathon—which she did, remarkably, in under four hours.
“I thought a lot during the run about endometriosis and everything I’ve been through,” Jojola said. “Doing it for charity is what got me through it.”
Patrick McCoy was running his fourth marathon and his first in New York. He ran in honor of his girlfriend, Caileigh Cashman, who recently had endometriosis surgery after suffering from severe symptoms for more than a decade. McCoy finished the race in three hours and forty-nine minutes, and the couple raised more than $7,000.
“The number of people who supported us was crazy—they knew how much this meant to us,” McCoy said. “A lot of friends reached out to say that their girlfriends were going through endo, as did one family member. They were very happy and appreciative that we were able to raise money for something that they struggled with.”
Jillian Lye and her husband, Darrell Leong, also ran the race and raised nearly $14,000 together. Lye has had two endometriosis surgeries, one in 2019 in Singapore and another in 2020 in New York. Like Peko, she finished in just under five hours.
“I wasn’t pushing for a certain time. I just wanted to complete it and complete it well,” Lye said.
Like all Team EndoStrong runners, Lye had said before the race that she was more focused on the cause than on the run.
“I posted [on social media] a lot about my training and the struggles I’d gone through,” Lye said. “I think a lot of my friends have more awareness now of what endometriosis is, and so many of them came out to the race to support us. It was a really good experience and for such a meaningful cause.”
While Murphy has run the race in the past, this year she focused on running the EndoFound tent. Stocked with food and drinks for the runners about a third of the way through the race in Brooklyn, the tent also had pamphlets on endometriosis and experts on hand to answer questions from passersby about the disease. Its presence was widely recognized.
“One woman crossed the street in the middle of the race to come and see us because she’d had the disease and didn’t know there was a foundation for it,” Murphy said. “She had surgery 20 years ago, including a hysterectomy, that severely impacted her life, and she was so happy to see us and what we were doing.”
All of the runners interviewed were grateful to their donors, to family and friends for their support during training, and to the crowd lining the marathon route for continually boosting their energy. For Peko, it was a “long victory lap” she will never forget.
“It was great weather and a great crowd,” Peko said. “My legs and knees hurt when it was over, but I’m happy I did it and raised the money that I did.”
Murphy expects applications for the 2026 Team EndoStrong to open around March at www.endofound.org. Read more about the 2025 participants and to donate to any of their fundraising campaigns here.
