Remembering Tom Longboat's legendary Boston Marathon run

This is an excerpt from The Buzzer, which is CBC Sports' daily email newsletter. Stay up to speed on what's happening in sports by subscribing here.

Canadian runners delivered some outstanding performances at yesterday's Boston Marathon. Forty-two-year-old marvel Malindi Elmore placed 11th in the women's division with a time of 2:27:58 — the fastest ever by a Canadian woman in Boston. Trevor Hofbauer finished 15th in the men's race to, along with Elmore, meet the qualifying standard for this summer's world championships. And, though they didn't reach the cutoff time for worlds, Natasha Wodak (19th) and Kate Bazeley (24th) turned in strong results on the 50th anniversary of Boston's first official women's race.

Today marks the anniversary of another famous Boston moment — one with a special place in Canadian sports lore: the great Tom Longboat's record-breaking victory on April 19, 1907.

Born in 1887 on the Six Nations Reserve, near Brantford, Ont., Longboat was forced to attend the Mohawk Institute — one of the many residential schools where children from First Nation communities were abused. As a teenager, Longboat escaped and went to live with an uncle. "I wouldn't even send my dog to that place," he later said of the school.

By 1903, Longboat's talent for distance running was well-known and he was living and training at Toronto's West End YMCA. His big breakthrough came in 1906, when he won the prestigious Around the Bay Road Race in Hamilton, Ont. by three minutes. That set the stage for the race of Longboat's life.

By the time of its 11th running in 1907, the Boston Marathon was already a big deal. And a Canadian had already won it three times — Ronald MacDonald (yes, his actual name) in 1898 and Jack Caffery in