Joe Klecker Plans His Half Marathon Debut

In a live recording of The CITIUS MAG Podcast in New York City, U.S. Olympian Joe Klecker confirmed that he is training for his half marathon debut in early 2025. He did not specify which race but signs point toward the Houston Half Marathon on Jan. 19th.

“We’re kind of on this journey to the marathon,” Klecker said on the Citizens Bank Stage at the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon Expo. “The next logical step is a half marathon. That will be in the new year. We don’t know exactly where yet but we want to go attack a half marathon. That’s what all the training is focused on and that’s why it’s been so fun. Not that the training is easy but it’s the training that comes the most naturally to me.”

Klecker owns personal bests of 12:54.99 for 5000m and 27:07.57 for 10,000m. In his lone outdoor track race of 2024, he ran 27:09.29 at Sound Running’s The Ten in March and missed the Olympic qualifying standard of 27:00.00.

His training style and genes (his mother Janis competed at the 1992 Summer Olympics in the marathon and won two U.S. marathon national championships in her career; and his father Barney previously held the U.S. 50-mile ultramarathon record) have always linked Klecker to great marathoning potential. For this year’s TCS New York City Marathon, the New York Road Runners had Klecker riding in the men’s lead truck so he could get a front-row glimpse at the race and the course, if he chooses to make his debut there or race in the near future.

The Comeback From Injury

In late May, Klecker announced he would not be able to run at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in June due to his recovery from a torn adductor earlier in the season, which ended his hopes of qualifying for a second U.S. Olympic team. He spent much of April cross training and running on the Boost microgravity treadmill at a lower percentage of his body weight.

“The process of coming back has been so smooth,” Klecker says. “A lot of that is just because it’s been all at the pace of my health. I haven’t been thinking like, ‘Oh I need to be at this level of fitness in two weeks to be on track for my goals.’ If my body is ready to go, we’re going to keep progressing. If it’s not ready to go, we’re going to pull back a little bit. That approach is what helped me get through this injury.”

One More Track Season

Klecker is not fully prepared to bid adieu to the track. He plans to chase the qualifying standard for the 10,000 meters and attempt to qualify for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo. In 2022, after World Athletics announced Tokyo as the 2025 host city, he told coach Dathan Ritzenhein that he wanted the opportunity to race at Japan National Stadium with full crowds.

“I’m so happy with what I’ve done on the track that if I can make one more team, I’ll be so happy,” Klecker says. “Doing four more years of this training, I don’t know if I can stay healthy to be at the level I want to be. One more team on the track would just be like a dream.”

Klecker is also considering doubling up with global championships and could look to qualify for the 2025 World Road Running Championships, which will be held Sept. 26th to 28th in San Diego. To make the team, Klecker would have to race at the Atlanta Half Marathon on Sunday, March 2nd, which also serves as the U.S. Half Marathon Championships. The top three men and women will qualify for Worlds. One spot on Team USA will be offered via World Ranking.

Sound Running’s The Ten, one of the few fast opportunities to chase the 10,000m qualifying standard on the track, will be held on March 29th in San Juan Capistrano.

Thoughts on Ryan Hall’s American Record

The American record in the half marathon remains Ryan Hall’s 59:43 set in Houston on Jan. 14th, 2007. Two-time Olympic medalist Galen Rupp (59:47 at the 2018 Prague Half) and two-time U.S. Olympian Leonard Korir (59:52 at the 2017 New Dehli Half) are the only other Americans to break 60 minutes.

In the last three years, only Biya Simbassa (60:37 at the 2022 Valencia Half), Kirubel Erassa (60:44 at the 2022 Houston Half), Diego Estrada (60:49 at the 2024 Houston Half) and Conner Mantz (60:55 at the 2021 USATF Half Marathon Championships) have even dipped under 61 minutes.

On a global scale, Nineteen of the top 20 times half marathon performances in history have come since the pandemic. They have all been run by athletes from Kenyan, Uganda, and Ethiopia, who have gone to races in Valencia (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), Ras Al Khaimah (UAE), or Copenhagen (Denmark), and the top Americans tend to pass on those races due to a lack of appearance fees or a stronger focus on domestic fall marathons.

Houston in January may be the fastest opportunity for a half marathon outside of the track season, which can run from March to September for 10,000m specialists.

“I think the record has stood for so long because it is such a fast record but we’re seeing these times drop like crazy,” Klecker says. “I think it’s a matter of time before it goes. Dathan (Ritzenhein) has run 60:00 so he has a pretty good barometer of what it takes to be in that fitness. Listening to him has been really good to let me know if that’s a realistic possibility and I think it is. That’s a goal of mine. I’m not there right now but I’m not racing a half marathon until the new year. I think we can get there to attempt it. A lot has to go right to get a record like that but just the idea of going for it is so motivating in training.”

His teammate, training partner, and Olympic marathon bronze medalist Hellen Obiri has full confidence in Klecker’s potential.

“He has been so amazing for training,” Obiri said in the days leading up to her runner-up finish at the New York City Marathon. “I think he can do the American record.”

posted Tuesday November 12th
by Chris Chavez