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Thirteen years after the publication of Christopher McDougall's popular book, Born to Run, the author teams up with renowned running coach Eric Orton for Born to Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide, a fully illustrated, practical guide to running for everyone from amateurs to seasoned runners, about how to eat, race, and train like the world's best. Born to Run 2 will be available on December 6, 2022, but you can read this excerpt from the book.

Chapter 8: Form - The Art of Easy

Eric promised he could teach running form in ten minutes. If I had to estimate, I'd guess he was miscalculating by a factor of at least 7,000 percent, so I subjected his proposition to lab testing and gave it a try myself:

I hit Pause and checked my watch. Then I tried it again. Each time, I found Eric's estimate to be wildly exaggerated. It wasn't even close to ten minutes. More like five.

One song. One wall. Three hundred seconds. If someone had only shared this secret with Karma Park, it could have saved her a world of misery.

Karma was such a disaster, the Navy honestly couldn't tell if she was a terrible runner or a terrific actor. How she even made it into boot camp was a mystery.

The strange thing was, running was her only weakness. Chuck her out of a boat at sea? No problem. Pull-ups, push-ups, crunches? Piece of cake. Karma was a competitive swimmer and varsity wrestler growing up, so two-hour workouts were in her blood. But ask her to run a mile and a half? In under thirteen minutes? Not a chance. Over and over she tried, and every time she ended up walking, grabbing her ribs from stitches and wincing from aches in her legs.

"I'm pretty sure the recruiter fudged the numbers on my Physical Readiness Test so she could get me in," Karma believes. "I finished the run and thought, Oh crap, I'm a minute too slow, and she's like, 'No, no, you're good.' "

When Karma got to basic training, she gritted her teeth and did her best. The Navy was her ticket to a dream life, so there was no way she was giving up. Karma was twenty-five at the time, with a wife in law school and hopes of becoming a surgeon. The surest path toward financing their future was a career in the military. Besides, she had a debt to pay back. Karma came to America from South Korea at age eleven, and while, yeah, maybe Alabama wasn't the most welcoming place for a foreign kid with budding gender issues, Karma was still deeply grateful for the life her family was able to create there.

"I really wanted to serve this country," she says. "But in boot camp I was in and out of sick bay all the time." Karma chanted the drill instructors' mottoes to herself-Pain is only skin deep! Heel to toe! Heel to toe!-but the harder she pushed, the more she broke down. "At first maybe they were checking that I wasn't dogging it," Karma recalls. "I can see how I would be suspected because I feel that other recruits faked it to get out of running, but I was in so much pain, they knew something else was going on."

Finally, Navy doctors diagnosed Karma with chronic hip displacement. She was ordered to report to the long-term sick bay, where she'd be stuck for as long as it took-a month, six months, a year-for her to either heal or quit. Those were her options: get better, get faster or get out.

Karma was crushed, but privately vindicated: ever since she was young and her mom would sign the whole family up for local 5Ks as a way of assimilating into their new home, Karma knew she couldn't run. "My dad and I would walk at the back of the pack, and I thought, This is the most ridiculous thing ever. We have cars and bikes, why are we running? I was really fit in all the other aspects of PE, but with running, I tried and tried and never got any better."

Back in civilian life, Karma struggled. She put her own education on hold and began managing a Subway so her wife could finish law school. She began putting on weight, but when she tried to exercise, her old leg injuries flared up and she finally discovered the real cause of her pain was rheumatoid arthritis. The medication made her lethargic and bloated, and her body ached so badly she needed a cane to walk.

Karma was in a bad spiral that nothing could stop. Except her wife's lover.

"My wife had an affair with a guy who was really fit," Karma says. "When I confronted her, she told me I was fat. That hit me really hard." So hard that after she and her wife separated, Karma decided to punish herself with the thing she detested most. "I decided to drown my emotional pain by subjecting myself to physical pain," she says. "When I left the Navy I swore off running-I hate it hate it hate it, never running again. This time, I decided to run myself ragged into an early grave. I hated myself and hated running, so this is what I'll do."

For once, Karma's injuries came to the rescue. Her legs seized up before her heart, and while she was searching for a new way to beat on herself, she had the enormous good luck to meet Sheridan. With that amazing woman by her side, parts of Karma that she hadn't even realized were hurting began to heal. For the first time, she had the confidence and support to face her gender identity and begin transitioning to the self that had always been buried.

She also resolved, once again, to get back into shape.

If you're keeping score at home, by now Karma has struck out three times as a runner. Over the years, I've heard a lot of stories like this from busted ex-runners-and lived one myself-but this is the first instance where I thought, okay, maybe it's time for the mercy rule to kick in and let it go for good. But against those odds, Karma stepped up again. When Sheridan gave birth to their first son, Karma set her jaw and decided their baby wasn't going to grow up with a parent hobbled with a cane or gone before their time.

"That's how I began my journey into learning how to run properly," she says.

This go-round, Karma attacked the problem from a different angle: What if her brain was the problem and not her body? Karma is a math whiz and comes from a medical family, so she was a little annoyed at herself for not realizing sooner that if your equation keeps giving you the wrong result, adding the same numbers isn't going to help. Rather than running harder, she thought, maybe there was a way she could run smarter.

Her eureka! moment occurred soon after, when she noticed that her legs hurt more on downhills than ups. That's when it hit her: What if she treated the entire planet like a hill? Get up on her forefoot, in other words, instead of heel-toe, heel-toeing it like she'd always been told.

"When I mentioned this to a friend, she immediately said, 'Haven't you read Born to Run? That's what it's all about.'"

Karma picked up a copy, and there, on page 181, she found the role model who would change her life. Not Ann Trason, the courageous science teacher who nearly outran a team of Raramuri runners in the Leadville Trail 100. Not Scott Jurek, the gracious and unbreakable hero who rose from a rough Minnesota childhood to become the greatest ultrarunner of all time. Karma didn't even see herself in Jenn Shelton, that patron saint of human fireballs, or Caballo Blanco, the lovelorn loner who used running to heal a broken heart.

Nope. When Karma looked into the mirror, grinning back at her was Barefoot Ted.

I'm not happy about this now, but when Caballo Blanco and I first met Ted McDonald, we were ready to Rock-Paper-Scissors over who was going to clunk him on the head and chuck him into the canyon. Ted likes to say "My life is a controlled explosion," which only confirmed my conviction that he has no idea what "control" means.

I was slow to see what Jenn and Billy Bonehead and Manuel Luna liked about Ted. It took a few clashes before I finally got it, including a toe-to-toe shouting match in the middle of Death Valley, where I threatened to leave Ted by the side of the road to die while he was yelling in my face, "I don't care how big you are! I'll fight you!"-at the very moment, by the way, when we were supposed to be crewing for Luis Escobar in the Badwater Ultramarathon.

But I couldn't miss the fact that lots of other people really enjoy him. Ted is a lot on a slow day, but he's also a huge-hearted friend and his own kind of genius. When I sent word to Ted that a group of my Amish ultrarunning buddies were traveling through Seattle en route to a Ragnar Relay, he immediately threw open the doors of his Luna Sandal shop and made them at home in an improvised bunkhouse. Nearly every year, Ted travels back down to the Copper Canyons and hands a wad of cash to Manuel Luna, the Raramuri artisan who taught him how to make huaraches. Not because they're partners; because they're friends.

Still, it was gratifying to see that Luis had as much steam shooting out of his ears as I did after we invited Ted to join us in Colton for our photo shoot. For forty-eight hours we couldn't get a yes or no out of the guy, which would have been fine if he'd just stayed silent as well. Instead, Luis and I kept getting cryptic little teaser texts, like digital art smiley faces that dissolved from our phones a few seconds after appearing. It felt less like waiting for a friend to show up (or not) and more like being stalked by the Zodiac Killer.

Then lo and behold, an Amtrak train pulls into San Bernardino station and out pops Barefoot Ted, a big Santa Claus backpack full of sandal-making supplies over his shoulder. He'd spent six hours getting there, and immediately began hand-crafting a gorgeous pair of custom sandals for each of our volunteer models. While his hands were busy, so was his mouth: Ted cut loose with a thirty-minute spoken-word performance that left us all slack-jawed in astonishment as he prattled on, fluently and kind of brilliantly, about everything that had been rattling around inside his skull while he was captive on the train. ("Turning everything you see into food is a superpower. Do you have it?" is the only line I remember.) Soon after finishing a dozen sandals he was gone, grabbing a lift back to Santa Barbara that same night because, unbeknown to us, he'd had a pressing commitment there all along. What a guy.

As a runner, Ted was a true revolutionary. He was so far ahead of the pack when it came to minimalism, the rest of the country took years to catch up. Not that he didn't make a compelling argument from the start. It's just that in typical Ted fashion, the story took a direction only a man who calls himself The Monkey would follow.

If you recall, Ted only began running in the first place because he dreamed of becoming America's Anachronistic Ironman. Which meant, for reasons known only to Ted, he wanted to spend his fortieth birthday completing a full triathlon (2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run) but only using gear from the 1890s. If Ted has one quality greater than his raw athleticism it's his absolutely bulletproof self-confidence, so when he found he could handle the swimming and cycling but not the running, the problem couldn't be his body: it had to be the running.

Close: it was actually the running shoes. The first time Ted ran barefoot, his planetary axis shifted. "I was totally amazed at how enjoyable it was," Ted says. "The shoes would cause so much pain, and as soon as I took them off, it was like my feet were fish jumping back into water after being held captive."

On a barefooter's blog, he found the Three Great Truths:

Change the way you run That was the opposite of everything Ted had ever been told about running, but everything Ted had ever been told about running wasn't working. Besides, it immediately made sense. No decent basketball player just heaves the ball in the air and hopes for the best. No serious tennis player slashes their racket around like a club. Ted had spent a few years as a teacher in Japan, and he knew that sushi chefs and martial artists spend years perfecting the basic steps of their craft. In the world of movement, form and technique reign supreme.

Ted didn't know any barefoot runners in person, only online, so he set off on this quest for reinvention on his own. He found himself in the same predicament as a Czech soldier he'd heard about who, during the Second World War, spent his long nights on guard duty dreaming of Olympic glory. Rather than stand and shiver, the soldier began running in place, lifting his knees high to clear the snow and, to avoid being heard, landing as silently as possible in his heavy boots.

Back home after the war, the soldier replaced slippery snow with wet laundry: he washed his clothes by running on top of them in a bathtub full of soap and water. (Get a load of that, Mr. 100 Up: one sloppy stride in a sudsy tub and you're not starting over, you're heading to the emergency room.)

Those weird home experiments paid off spectacularly. Coached only by his own ingenuity, Emil Zatopek pulled off the most stunning track performance in Olympic history: at the 1952 Games, he won gold in all three distance events, including the first marathon he ever attempted. 

Despite how fast he ran, Emil took a ton of crap about how awful he looked. Upstairs, Zatopek was a horror. He'd get this grimace on his face, one sportswriter said, "as if he'd just been stabbed through the heart." Zatopek's head lolled around and his hands clawed his own chest like he was birthing an alien baby through his rib cage. But what sportswriters missed was that below the waist, Zatopek was a machine: rhythmic, precise, impeccable.

Ted never did get around to his Anachronistic Ironman-not yet, at least-but otherwise, he was unstoppable. Once he realized that running was a skill to be mastered and not a punishment to be endured, he became a Monkey on a mission.

Before long, he'd ripped out a marathon quick enough to qualify for Boston, and then ran Boston quick enough to qualify for the next one, and from there it was onward and literally upward, as he shifted from long roads to high-mountain ultramarathons.

But what Karma envied most wasn't Ted's remarkable twenty-five-hour finish at the Leadville Trail 100, or his out-of-left-field world record for skateboarding (242 miles in twenty-four hours). She didn't care if she ever ran as fast as Ted. She just wanted to be as healthy. She wanted to follow his footsteps from Hurt Ted to Happy Ted.

"I made a conscious decision to fully embrace forefoot running," Karma says.

Maybe embrace isn't the right word. Since May 3, 2014, Karma hasn't missed a single day of running. Every evening, no matter what kind of storm is blowing through Birmingham, Alabama, no matter if she's fighting a cold or dealing with craziness at the medical office she manages, Karma pulls on her sandals and heads out the door.

Her eight-year-and-counting streak began in true Barefoot Ted fashion: bizarrely. Less than a year after changing her form, the woman who swore she'd never run again was bringing home her first marathon medal. Gone was the cane, forgotten was the specter of crippling arthritis. By changing the way she moved, Karma discovered she could change the way she felt. She soon ramped up from a marathon to a 50K, and that's when things took off. The day after that first ultramarathon, Karma decided to test her soreness by jogging an easy two miles. She was surprised to find her legs actually felt better after that run, so she went out again the next day and the next and thus a streak was born.

To maintain her daily running streak, Karma logs at least one mile a day, but that's just her baseline. During her first year of streaking she also tackled three ultramarathons, and then began creating streaks within her streak: she ran five miles a day for a full year, seven miles a day for ten months, and three miles a day for 1,300 days. Despite all these clicks on her odometer, Karma still felt she needed to borrow one more hack from Barefoot Ted: as a reminder to remain smooth and light, she always runs in a pair of his Lunas.

Karma had never actually met Ted in person until the day he hopped off the train in San Bernardino and blew into our photo shoot like a grinning bald tornado. Ted is usually quick on his feet, but when he came eye to eye with Karma, it took him a few beats to get his bearings.

The person who'd reached out to Ted years ago had never felt at home in her body and was facing two frightening transformations. The Karma in front of Ted today had made it through to the other end. In the past, Karma had looked to Ted for hope and guidance. Now, she deserved something very different. Ted understood, and delivered.

"If you have any questions, ask Karma," Ted said, as he addressed the circle of very experienced and accomplished ultrarunners hanging on his every word about the art of minimalist running. "She knows as much as I do."

This is an excerpt from Born to Run 2: The Ultimate Training Guide by Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton, available on December 6, 2022 by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright 2022 by Christopher McDougall and Eric Orton.

 

The prospect of seeing one of athletics' biggest stars back on the track is growing stronger, with Jakob Ingebrigtsen reportedly targeting a return to competition later this summer following his recovery from Achilles tendon surgery.

According to comments made by his agent, Daniel Wessfeldt, in an interview with Norwegian media, the double Olympic champion could make his long-awaited comeback at one of three major European meetings in July. The leading options under consideration are the Monaco Diamond League on July 10, the Hungarian Athletics Grand Prix on July 14, and the London Diamond League on July 18.

For athletics fans, the possibility of Ingebrigtsen lining up in London would add another layer of excitement to an already highly anticipated Diamond League meeting. The Norwegian middle-distance sensation has become one of the sport's most dominant figures in recent years, collecting Olympic, world and European titles while consistently rewriting record books.

His 2026 campaign was put on hold after he underwent surgery on his Achilles tendon earlier this year, forcing him to focus on rehabilitation rather than competition. Since then, questions have surrounded when the 24-year-old would be ready to return to racing.

The latest update suggests that decision will largely depend on how his training progresses over the coming weeks. If recovery continues according to plan, July could mark the beginning of his return to elite competition ahead of the latter stages of the season.

A comeback at either Monaco, Budapest or London would immediately place Ingebrigtsen back among the sport's biggest storylines. Each meeting is renowned for producing world-class performances, and any appearance by the Norwegian would attract significant attention from fans eager to see how quickly he can regain top form after his injury setback.

While no final decision has been confirmed, the signs are increasingly positive. After months away from competition, Jakob Ingebrigtsen appears to be edging closer to a return, with London's Diamond League meeting emerging as one of the most intriguing possibilities on his road back to the track.

Should his recovery continue smoothly, athletics could soon welcome back one of its brightest and most influential stars.

What should have been the defining moment of Emad Bashir-Mohammed's young running career instead turned into one of the most talked-about controversies in American road racing this year.

The 23-year-old crossed the finish line first in the men's citizen's race at the prestigious Bolder Boulder 10K on Memorial Day in Colorado, stopping the clock at an impressive 29:50. His performance was not only a commanding victory but also one of the fastest winning times ever recorded in the event's long and celebrated history. Bashir-Mohammed finished eight seconds clear of his nearest challenger and appeared to have secured a breakthrough triumph.

For nearly two hours, he was the undisputed winner.

Then everything changed.

Race officials announced that Bashir-Mohammed had been disqualified after determining that he had started in the wrong wave. According to Bolder Boulder regulations, he had been assigned to the AA wave but lined up with the faster A wave, which began earlier. Event rules allow runners to move backward into a slower wave, but prohibit athletes from advancing into a faster one.

As a result, Bashir-Mohammed's victory was erased from the record books.

The citizen's title was subsequently awarded to Nickolas Scudder, who crossed the line second in 29:58. The promotion handed Scudder back-to-back citizen's race victories, while Bashir-Mohammed was left to grapple with the disappointment of losing a win he believed he had earned on the road.

The disqualification has since ignited widespread debate across the running community.

Bashir-Mohammed maintains that he did not intentionally violate the rules. He claims that after collecting his AA bib, he spoke with race personnel and was permitted to start with the A wave after presenting evidence of his recent performances. In a statement shared after the race, he expressed frustration over the decision, arguing that his goal was simply to compete against the strongest field available and produce the fastest time possible.

Race organizers, however, stood firmly behind their ruling. Officials stated that wave-assignment regulations are clearly communicated in pre-race information and reiterated during packet collection. They also noted that hundreds of participants are disqualified each year for moving into faster start groups, emphasizing that consistent enforcement is necessary to maintain fairness for all competitors.

The incident has divided opinion among runners and fans alike. Some believe the rules must be applied equally regardless of an athlete's finishing position, arguing that wave assignments are a fundamental part of race organization. Others feel the punishment is harsh, particularly if Bashir-Mohammed genuinely received approval to move up before the start.

What remains undisputed is the quality of his performance. On the roads of Boulder, Bashir-Mohammed demonstrated the fitness and speed required to outrun the field by a significant margin. Yet in road racing, crossing the finish line first is only part of the equation. Compliance with race regulations carries equal weight.

For Bashir-Mohammed, the day will be remembered as a painful lesson in the fine margins that can define elite competition. A remarkable run delivered a memorable victory, but a dispute over wave placement ultimately overshadowed the achievement, leaving behind a controversy that continues to fuel discussion throughout the running world.

A fast race, a costly administrative error, and a debate that may linger long after the finish-line tape has been packed away.

The men's 100 metres at the 2026 Rome Diamond League is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated sprint races of the season, with an exceptional field featuring some of the fastest men in the world.

Scheduled for Thursday, June 4, at the iconic Stadio Olimpico in Rome, the race will bring together reigning stars, established champions and emerging talents in a contest that promises fireworks from the moment the gun goes off.

Kenya's Ferdinand Omanyala headlines a world-class lineup that includes American sprint sensation Noah Lyles, Botswana's Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo, Jamaica's explosive Ackeem Blake, South Africa's ever-consistent Akani Simbine and Italy's hometown hero Lamont Marcell Jacobs. With personal bests ranging from 9.77 to 9.97 seconds, the field is packed with athletes capable of producing something special on the Diamond League stage.

Omanyala, the African record holder with a blistering personal best of 9.77 seconds, arrives in Rome eager to continue his strong early-season form and prove he can challenge the very best on the global circuit. The Kenyan star has built a reputation as one of the fastest starters in world sprinting and will be looking to make a statement against an elite field.

Standing in his way is world champion Noah Lyles, whose personal best of 9.79 seconds places him among the fastest athletes in history. The American remains one of the sport's biggest attractions and will be determined to add another Diamond League victory to his impressive résumé.

The race also marks a major test for Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo. The Botswanan star has rapidly become one of athletics' most exciting talents, while Ackeem Blake continues to establish himself as a serious contender on the international sprint scene.

Adding further intrigue is the presence of Italy's Lamont Marcell Jacobs. Competing on home soil, the Tokyo Olympic champion will enjoy passionate local support as he seeks to deliver a memorable performance in front of the Roman crowd.

South Africa's Akani Simbine, Cameroon's Emmanuel Eseme, Great Britain's Jeremiah Azu and rising American talent Jordan Anthony complete a field that boasts remarkable depth and quality.

Men's 100m Entry List – Rome Diamond League 2026

Ferdinand Omanyala (Kenya) – PB: 9.77

Noah Lyles (USA) – PB: 9.79

Lamont Marcell Jacobs (Italy) – PB: 9.80

Akani Simbine (South Africa) – PB: 9.82

Letsile Tebogo (Botswana) – PB: 9.86

Ackeem Blake (Jamaica) – PB: 9.88

Jordan Anthony (USA) – PB: 9.91

Emmanuel Eseme (Cameroon) – PB: 9.96

Jeremiah Azu (Great Britain) – PB: 9.97

With multiple national record holders, global champions and Olympic medal contenders sharing the same start line, the Rome Diamond League men's 100m could deliver one of the fastest races of the year. For sprint fans around the world, all eyes will be on Rome as a stellar cast battles for supremacy over athletics' blue-riband distance.

Audrey Werro announced her arrival as one of the early stars of the 2026 outdoor season with a commanding victory in the women’s 800 metres at the Rabat Diamond League, producing a performance that exceeded even her own expectations.

The Swiss middle-distance talent surged to victory in a brilliant 1:56.56, breaking the meeting record and delivering one of the fastest times recorded worldwide this season. In a race packed with quality, Werro displayed exceptional composure, confidence, and finishing strength to separate herself from the field and stamp her authority on the event.

What made the performance even more remarkable was the athlete's surprise at the level she had already reached so early in the campaign.

"I was not expecting such a strong start to the season," Werro admitted after the race.

The race unfolded at a relentless pace, but Werro remained perfectly positioned throughout. As the athletes approached the bell lap, she glanced at the clock and immediately sensed something special was within reach.

"When I saw the time at the bell, I felt really confident," she said. "I'm really happy with the Meeting Record and looking forward to the rest of the season."

Her confidence proved justified. Maintaining her rhythm over the final 400 metres, Werro powered down the home straight to secure the victory and rewrite the Rabat meeting record books in the process.

The performance sends an early warning to her rivals ahead of a season that promises major championships and high-profile Diamond League battles. Beyond the record-breaking time, Werro's display highlighted her growing maturity as a racer, combining tactical awareness with impressive speed and endurance.

With the outdoor season only beginning, the 1:56.56 clocking suggests that even faster times could be on the horizon. If Rabat is any indication, Audrey Werro may be poised for the biggest season of her career.

Her emphatic victory in Morocco was more than just another Diamond League win—it was a statement of intent from an athlete determined to challenge the world's best throughout 2026.

The city of Boston is set to welcome back one of its most celebrated champions as Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi headlines a world-class field for the 2026 B.A.A. 10K presented by Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute on June 21.

Fresh from another remarkable victory at the Boston Marathon in April, Lokedi returns to the streets of Boston and Cambridge carrying both momentum and confidence as she aims to defend the title she captured in dominant fashion last year.

The two-time Boston Marathon champion has developed a special connection with the historic race city. In 2025, she produced a course-record performance of 2:17:22 to win the Boston Marathon before returning this year to claim another victory in 2:18:51, the second-fastest winning time in the event’s storied history. Her success has cemented her status as one of the premier road runners in the world.

Lokedi will be making her first competitive appearance since her marathon triumph and arrives as the reigning B.A.A. 10K champion after clocking 31:39 over the challenging 6.2-mile course in 2025.

“Boston has become a very special place for me,” Lokedi said ahead of the race. “The atmosphere created by the fans and the community is unlike anywhere else. I’m excited to return and give everything I have to defend my title.”

The women’s race promises to be highly competitive. American Olympian Rachel Smith, who finished second at the Boston 5K in April, leads the domestic challenge. Kenya’s strong contingent includes African 10,000m champion Gladys Kwamboka, former B.A.A. 10K runner-up Stacy Ndiwa, and experienced road racer Viola Cheptoo. British Olympian Jessica Warner-Judd adds further international depth to a field packed with proven performers.

The men’s race is equally impressive, featuring elite athletes from 13 nations.

Ethiopia’s Dawit Seare enters as one of the leading contenders after capturing the 2025 Boston 5K title and bringing the fastest 10K personal best in the field at 27:21. Kenya will be represented by an accomplished group led by Alexander Mutiso, winner of the 2024 London Marathon and runner-up at last year’s New York City Marathon.

Patrick Kiprop also arrives in outstanding form after securing victory at the prestigious BolderBoulder 10K on Memorial Day, while Alex Masai returns looking to continue his strong record in Boston. Masai recently finished ninth at the Boston Marathon and has earned three top-ten finishes at the B.A.A. 10K.

Among the international stars making their mark is South Africa’s Adriaan Wildschutt, who makes his race debut after an impressive season highlighted by victory at the NYC Half Marathon in 59:30. Ethiopia’s Olympic bronze medallist Hagos Gebrhiwet adds further quality to the field, bringing a wealth of championship experience and previous success in Boston.

Canadian national 10K champion Andrew Alexander, two-time U.S. Olympian Hillary Bor, marathon standout Ryan Ford, and reigning USA 25K champion Andrew Colley complete a field stacked with talent and depth.

With defending champions, Olympic finalists, national champions and rising stars all converging on Boston, the 2026 B.A.A. 10K is shaping up to be one of the most competitive editions in recent memory. For Sharon Lokedi, however, the mission is simple: return to the city where she has repeatedly excelled and add another memorable chapter to her growing Boston legacy.