More than a year after a space mission unexpectedly stretched from weeks into months, retired NASA astronaut and Needham native Sunita Williams is preparing to run the Boston Marathon on Monday, marking her recovery on Earth while reflecting on the next frontier of human space exploration.
Williams, 60, who retired after a 27-year career with NASA, has run the marathon before — including on a treadmill in space in 2007 — but she said this will be her first time in more than a decade since her last race along the famous route from Hopkinton to Boston.
“I’m gonna be trying to run the marathon, we’ll see if I finish,” she said with a laugh in a Zoom interview Thursday from Cape Cod, where she was visiting family.
Williams, a former Navy captain who has an elementary school in Needham named after her, has been working her way back into shape since she and her crewmate, Butch Wilmore, returned from the ISS last year.
The pair launched to the space station in 2024 as the first people to flying on Boeing’s new Starliner, but issues with the spacecraft prevented their scheduled return to Earth, leaving Williams and Wilmore on the ISS for more than nine months before they caught a ride home in March 2025 with SpaceX.
Williams said her recovery from the mission has been gradual and she is feeling good.
“We’re strong because we have exercise equipment when we’re up there,” she said. “But the things we lose are like your agility, your ability to do things fast, all those little muscles aren’t getting exercise when you’re up there. ... If you’re diligent when you’re up in space and you put in the work and use the nutrition the right way, you’re gonna come back and be okay.”
Williams has long been known for blending her athleticism with her work as one of NASA’s most experienced astronauts, logging more than 600 days in orbit and conducting multiple spacewalks.
As she moves into retirement, Williams is also reflecting on the future of space exploration, including the recent Artemis II mission, which she called a critical step toward returning humans to the moon.
“We needed to get this one right,” she said. “I’m excited for this next generation of explorers.”
Williams said NASA is building on lessons learned from more than 25 years of operating the ISS, as the space agency prepares for longer and more complex missions.
“When we put our heads together ... we can make the impossible possible,” she said.
Even with that optimism, Williams said human spaceflight remains inherently risky and far more complicated than sending satellites or robots to space.
“When human beings get involved, it gets tricky,” she said. “You have to figure out how people are going to stay alive.”
During her extended stay at the ISS, Williams said she was never afraid but acknowledged the discomfort of not knowing how long she would remain in space or how she would return home.
“Uncertainty is always uncomfortable,” she said. “Everybody wants the answer ... and that just took a long time.”
She said the experience reinforced her trust in the people on the ground supporting each mission, as well as the public for the care they showed her and Wilmore during the ill-fated Starliner capsule test flight.
“We are all just humans, and we really do care about each other,” she said.
Williams, who now lives in Maine, said she hopes to continue promoting STEM learning and stay involved in science and space exploration.
“There’s opportunities out there maybe to work with some of these commercial companies,” she said. “If those opportunities come up, I’d love to be a part of that.”
For now, Williams said she is enjoying her time back on the planet she looked down on from the ISS for months, and she’s focused on the 26.2-mile foot race on Monday.
“I’m a little slow, but I feel good and am happy to get out there to try it,” she said.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com.