Running News Daily

How to Watch the 2024 Boston Marathon

The world’s oldest annual marathon is back for its 128th edition.

On Monday, April 15, the World Marathon Majors will return stateside to the 2024 Boston Marathon. In its 128th year, the world’s oldest annual marathon features must-see storylines, including the return of defending women’s champion Hellen Obiri and two-time men’s winner Evans Chebet.

The point-to-point race is scheduled to begin in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and ends in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. The weather forecast for Patriots’ Day is showing slightly warmer temperatures than average in the city. The conditions could make race day more challenging on a course famous for its hills (we ranked Boston as the second-toughest of the six World Marathon Majors).

Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s race. 

How to watch the 2024 Boston Marathon

ESPN2 will broadcast the Boston Marathon from 8:30 a.m. ET to 12:30 p.m. ET. You can also live stream the race with an ESPN+ subscription, which costs $10.99 a month. 

For those tuning in from Boston, live coverage will be provided by WCVB beginning at 4:00 a.m. ET and lasting throughout the day.

Boston Marathon start times (ET)

Men’s wheelchair division—9:02 a.m.

Women’s wheelchair division—9:05 a.m.

Men’s elite race—9:37 a.m.

Women’s elite race—9:47 a.m.

Para athletics division—9:50 a.m.

First wave—10 a.m.

Second wave—10:25 a.m.

Third wave—10:50 a.m.

Fourth wave—11:15 a.m.

Race preview

This year’s elite race comes with added high stakes for many international athletes. Countries that don’t host Olympic Trials for the marathon are currently in the national team selection process. A standout performance in Boston could be a game-changer for athletes looking to represent their country in Paris this summer. 

Women’s race

On the women’s side, Boston podium contenders Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi were included in the shortlist of marathoners under national team consideration by Athletics Kenya. 

Obiri, 34, is set to return to Boston after a stellar 2023 campaign. Last year, the On Athletics Club runner won the Boston Marathon and the New York City Marathon. A former track standout with two world championship titles, Obiri aims to continue her winning streak on Monday. 

Lokedi, 30, is looking to top the podium at a key moment in her career. The University of Kansas graduate is set to run her first 26.2 since finishing third at the New York City Marathon last fall—a race she won in her marathon debut two years ago. 

Kenya will also be represented by 2022 World Championship silver medalist Judith Korir and two-time Boston Marathon champion Edna Kiplagat, among other standouts. 

The Ethiopian contingent should be strong as well. Ababel Yeshaneh finished second at Boston in 2022 and fourth in 2023. Plus, 2:17 marathoner Tadu Teshome will be one to watch in her Boston debut. 

In the weeks after the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February, more Americans were added to the field. Sara Hall, 40, enters the race after finishing fifth in a new American masters record (2:26:06) at the Trials in Orlando, Florida. 2015 Boston champion Caroline Rotich, 39, joins the field after placing sixth at the Trials. Jenny Simpson, 37, also entered after dropping out in her marathon debut in Orlando. And keep an eye out for 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden, 40, and Emma Bates, 31, who finished fifth in Boston last year. 

Men’s race

Evans Chebet is looking for a hat trick. Last year, the Kenyan became the first athlete to repeat as men’s champion since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot won three in a row between 2006 and 2008. In the process, the 35-year-old took down two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge in Boston. 

His biggest challenger will likely be Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia, who is returning after a breakthrough season in 2023. In December, Lemma, 33, won the Valencia Marathon in 2:01:48, making him the fourth-fastest marathoner in history. Lemma also won the Runkara International Half Marathon in 1:01:09, a new personal best. 

Gabriel Geay, last year’s Boston runner-up, is returning to the field on Monday. The 27-year-old from Tanzania is coming off a fifth-place finish at the Valencia Marathon. 

Other runners to watch include 2023 New York City runner-up Albert Korir; Shura Kitata, who placed third in New York last year; and Zouhair Talbi, who finished fifth in Boston last year. 

The American men’s field also grew after the Olympic Trials with the addition of Elkanah Kibet and Sam Chelanga. Kibet finished fourth in Orlando in a 2:10:02 personal best, and after dropping out after mile 18 of the Trials, Chelanga will aim for redemption in Boston. They join 50K world record-holder CJ Albertson and the BAA’s Matt McDonald in the elite race. 

(04/14/2024) Views: 138 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Grovdal, Kipchumba Take Victories At United Airlines NYC Half

Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal and Kenya’s Abel Kipchumba won this morning’s hilly and chilly United Airlines NYC Half in 1:09:09 and 1:00:25, respectively.  Grøvdal, 33, a three-time European Athletics cross country champion, became the first European woman to win the race since Britain’s Mara Yamauchi in 2010. 

Kipchumba, 30, last November’s B.A.A. Half-Marathon champion in Boston, was the race’s ninth Kenyan male champion over its 17-year history.  Both athletes won $20,000 in prize money.

The two dozen women in the elite field were in no hurry to establish a fast pace when the race set off from Prospect Park in Brooklyn just after sunrise.  Calli Thackery of Great Britain, recently named to her country’s Olympic Marathon team, was the early leader and a pack of seven went through the 5-K checkpoint in a gentle 17:07.  Grøvdal was in that pack along with Kenya’s Gladys Chepkurui, Edna Kiplagat and Cynthia Limo; the Netherlands’ Diane Van Es; and Switzerland’s Fabienne Schlumpf.  The two top Americans, Des Linden and Jenny Simpson, were five seconds back.

The next five kilometers would be critical.  As the leaders ascended the Manhattan Bridge to cross the East River, the pace became too difficult for Thackery, Van Es and Schlumpf who all slid back.  At the 10-K mark on the Manhattan side (33:26) the race was down to four: Grøvdal, Chepkurui, Kiplagat, and Limo.

Limo, the reigning Honolulu Marathon champion, was next to lose contact after Chepkurui pushed the pace up the FDR Drive along the East River. By 15-K, Limo was nearly 20 seconds behind and would finish a distant fourth in 1:11:54.

Grøvdal Comes Back

But Grøvdal was also hurting.  In the tenth mile (17th kilometer) as the race went up Seventh Avenue past Times Square, Grøvdal began to lose contact with Chepkurui and Kiplagat.  It looked like she would finish third for the third year in a row.

“I was so tired then,” Grøvdal told reporters.  “Just thinking, it’s third this year also.  But then, I don’t know.  I just tried to don’t get the gap too big.  Suddenly, I was just behind them again.”

The final seven kilometers of this race are particularly tough.  The race climbs about 30 meters from 15-K to the finish, and the finish straight itself is uphill.  Grøvdal knew the course well and was ready.

“Then something in me just, OK, now it’s the finish,” Grøvdal explained.  “It’s 3-K left, so I was planning to have a strong finish the last 2-K and I did that.”  She added: “I just went for it.”

The men’s race began much more aggressively than the women’s.  By the 5-K mark (14:23) Kipchumba and Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi had already reduced the lead pack to four.  Along for the ride were two Olympic steeplechasers, American Hillary Bor and Eritrean Yemane Haileselassie.  The four stayed together through 10-K (28:38), but then Kipchumba and Talbi began to trade surges.  That kind of racing was too punishing for Haileselassie, who drifted off the pace.  Bor, running in just his first half-marathon, hung on.

“I wanted a fast race and I think the same for him,” said Talbi, who is observing Ramadan and had to fast in the days leading up to today’s race.  “He (Kipchumba) wanted to push… so both of us keep pushing from the start.  I pushed until the end, basically.”

By 15-K (42:54) Bor was 12 seconds back and Haileselassie was 32 seconds in arrears.  It would be either the Kenyan or the Moroccan who would take the victory today.  Kipchumba was determined and recognized Talbi as a formidable opponent.

“Today was not easy,” Kipchumba told Race Results Weekly.  “The guy was strong.”

Kipchumba finally shook off Talbi in the race’s final stages, leading by 10 seconds at 20-K (57:18) and, ultimately, 17 seconds at the finish.  His time of 1:00:25 was the fastest since 2017 when the race was held on a different –and much easier– course from Central Park to lower Manhattan.

“I tried my best; I won the race,” Kipchumba said.  “(With) three kilometers remaining I said it’s time to win.”

Talbi was second in 1:00:41, and Haileselassie passed Bor in the final kilometer to take third in 1:01:37 to Bor’s 1:01:47.  Another American, Reed Fischer, rounded out the top 5 in 1:03:06.

(03/19/2024) Views: 188 ⚡AMP
by David Monti

Edna Kiplagat to fight for top honors at NYC Half Marathon

Double world marathon champion, Edna Kiplagat will lead a stellar team of deep elite women at the 18th edition of the New York City Half Marathon scheduled for Sunday (17) in New York City.

The 44 year-old who is the oldest athlete to grace this event, comes to this race with the second fastest time on paper of 1:07.52 that she got last year at the Houston Half Marathon.

Kiplagat who is also a four time world major marathon winner will have to get past the two-time U.S. Olympian and Boston Marathon winner Des Linden and Rio Olympics 1500m bronze medallist, Jenny Simpson.

Other title contenders include former European 10,000m bronze medallist, Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, who is also the fastest athlete on paper with a time of 1:07.34, world marathon bronze medallist, Fatima Gardadi, and Canadian marathon record holder Malindi Elmore.

The race organisers have assembled this strong team to target the race course record of 1:07.35 set eight years ago by Molly Huddle of United States.

LEADING TIME

21KM WOMEN

Karoline Grøvdal (NOR) 1:07.34

Edna Kiplagat      (KEN) 1:07.52

Malindi Elmore    (CAN) 1:10.11

Des Linden           (USA) 1:10.34

Jenny Simpson     (USA) 1:10.35

Fatima Gardadi    (MOR)1:10.28

(03/15/2024) Views: 140 ⚡AMP
by James Koech

Kenenisa Bekele, Connor Mantz & Clayton Young To Headline 2024 United Airlines NYC Half

The New York Road Runners (NYRR) has announced that the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half, taking place Sunday, March 17, will feature 11 Olympians, seven Paralympians, and several more professional athletes who have their eyes on the Paris 2024 Games this summer.

Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, fresh off finishing first and second, respectively, at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, will headline the men’s open division at the United Airlines NYC Half, while two-time U.S. Olympian Hillary Bor will race 13.1 miles for the first time in his career and the world’s most-decorated distance runner, Kenenisa Bekele, will return to New York for his second NYRR event. The women’s open division will be chock-full of established contenders, including Olympians Des Linden, Jenny Simpson, Edna Kiplagat, Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, and Malindi Elmore, in addition to World Championships marathon bronze medalist Fatima Gardadi.

These athletes will lead more than 25,000 runners during the United Airlines NYC Half, the world’s premier half marathon, organized by NYRR, which runs from Brooklyn to Manhattan, passing historic landmarks, diverse neighborhoods, and sweeping views of the city along the way before finishing in Central Park.

Men’s Open Division

Mantz and Young, training partners from Provo, Utah, will line up together at the start in New York less than two months after finishing one-two at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando and qualifying for the Paris 2024 Games. Mantz was fifth in his first United Airlines NYC Half in 2022, and last year became the seventh-fastest American marathoner in history when running 2:07:47 to finish sixth at the Chicago Marathon. Young finished right behind him in seventh in 2:08:00 and will be making his United Airlines NYC Half debut.

“I think I have a lot of room to improve in the halfs,” Mantz said on the latest episode of NYRR Set the Pace, Feb. 22, 2024. “I want to get these halfs in so I can have more confidence heading into Paris. I ran [the United Airlines NYC Half] in 2022…which was probably one of the most special experiences and it was a huge learning [experience]. It was probably my first race where I was competing against a big international field…so it was a really good experience for me, and I think it’s one I want to repeat and take what I’ve learned in the last two years and use it.”

Ethiopia’s Bekele, a four-time Olympic medalist, 16-time world champion, and the third-fastest marathoner in history, will challenge the American duo, racing with NYRR for the second time after finishing sixth at the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon. He will be joined at the starting line by Kenya’s Abel Kipchumba, the reigning champion of the B.A.A. Boston Half Marathon who owns one of the top-10 half-marathon times in history.

(02/24/2024) Views: 269 ⚡AMP
by Letsrun

Malindi Elmore and Tristan Woodfine to run 2024 NYC Half

On Thursday, the New York Road Runners (NYRR) announced the field for the 2024 NYC Half on March 17, which will feature Canadian marathoners Malindi Elmore and Tristan Woodfine alongside 11 Olympians and one of the world’s most decorated distance runners, Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele.

This will be Bekele’s first time at the NYC Half and only his second career road race in New York City. (He finished sixth at the TCS New York City Marathon in 2021.) Bekele is one of the most prolific runners of all time, having been at the top of the sport for more than two decades. His personal best of 2:01:41 from the 2019 Berlin Marathon still stands as the Ethiopian national record, and makes him the third-fastest marathoner in history.

Bekele will headline the men’s race alongside top U.S. marathoners Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, who are fresh off finishing first and second, respectively, at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 3. Also joining the men’s field is Cobden, Ont.’s Woodfine, who is coming off an impressive 2:10:39 personal best and sixth-place finish at the 2024 Houston Marathon. The 30-year-old is currently training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, where he hopes to place in the top five to potentially secure a spot on the Canadian Olympic marathon team in Paris.

The women’s elite field will be full of established distance runners, including Olympians Des Linden, Jenny Simpson, Edna Kiplagat and Elmore, who was recently nominated to her third Olympic Games. Elmore secured her spot on the Canadian team last fall with a 2:23:30 clocking at the 2023 Berlin Marathon, the second-fastest Canadian women’s marathon time. Like Woodfine, Elmore is also training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, which she hopes will prepare her for the hilly marathon course at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which is expected to be the hilliest Olympic marathon course to date.

The men’s and women’s elite field will lead more than 25,000 runners during the United Airlines NYC Half, the world’s premier half marathon, which runs from Brooklyn to Manhattan, passing historic landmarks, diverse neighbourhoods and sweeping views of The Big Apple before finishing in the middle of Central Park.

(02/24/2024) Views: 225 ⚡AMP
by Marley Dickinson

Ednah Kiplagat confirms next race as she chases more history

Forty-four-year-old Edna Kiplagat has opened up on where she will compete next, giving the impression that she is not hanging her spikes anytime soon.

More than 25,000 runners have confirmed participation at the New York City Half Marathon scheduled for Sunday, March 17 from Brooklyn to Manhattan, finishing in Central Park.

One of the headliners in the women’s field is 44-year-old Kenyan runner Edna Kiplagat who will be using the race as part of her preparations for the Boston Marathon.

Kiplagat is one of the most successful long-distance runners and from her records, she is a two-time Boston Marathon champion and former London and New York City Marathon champion.

Kiplagat will be up against compatriots Gladys Chepkurui, the reigning Tokyo Half Marathon champion, and Cynthia Limo, a World Athletics Championships half-marathon medalist. The duo has the two fastest times in the women's open division.

Two-time US Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion Desiree Linden will return as the top American finisher from last year's race, having recently finished 11th at the US Olympic Marathon Trials.

Olympic and World Championships medalist Emily Simpson will make her United Airlines NYC Half debut but she is no stranger to NYRR races as an eight-time winner of the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile.

Lindsay Flanagan and Annie Frisbie, both of whom finished in the top 10 at the 2024 US Olympic Marathon Trials, will also be ones to watch.

Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele, a four-time Olympic medalist, 16-time world champion, and the third-fastest marathoner in history, will challenge the Kenyan charge in the men’s race. He will be competing in the streets of New York for the second time after finishing sixth at the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon.

The Kenyan charge will be led by, Abel Kipchumba, the reigning champion of the B.A.A. Boston Half Marathon who owns one of the top 10 half-marathon times in history.

Morocco's Zouhair Talbi will return to the event after taking third in his United Airlines NYC Half debut last year, which he called "the race of his life."

Since then, he finished fifth at the Boston Marathon and broke the Houston Marathon course record in January.

Tanzanian Olympian and marathon record-holder Gabriel Geay, who was the runner-up at last year's Boston Marathon, will race the United Airlines NYC Half for the first time.

An American contender to watch will be Hillary Bor, a two-time U.S. Olympian and five-time national champion who will be making his half-marathon debut.

(02/23/2024) Views: 205 ⚡AMP
by Abigael Wuafula

Kara Goucher Inks New Sponsorship Deal with Brooks

Her first brand appearance will be at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando this weekend, where she’ll be part of the official NBC broadcast.

Brooks announced on Monday that the shoe company has signed a new deal with Kara Goucher, which entails not only footwear sponsorship, but speaking engagement and athlete collaboration opportunities. Everything officially goes into effect starting this weekend in Orlando at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, where Goucher will be helping to tell the stories of the runners vying for Olympic spots on the NBC broadcast.

Footwearnews.com reports that the two-time U.S. Olympian and World Championship medalist will be the primary face of Brooks’ events throughout 2024, both at competitions and at Brooks’ community impact programs like Future Run, the company’s $10 million commitment to running programs across the country. She will also make appearances at the Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene and the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

“I’m excited to work with Brooks on this new partnership and share my excitement and belief of the impact that running can have,” Goucher said in a statement. “Telling the amazing stories of runners is something I’ve always been passionate about, and Brooks makes for an incredible teammate as we continue to advocate for the power of the run to improve the sport for future generations.”

Goucher began her professional running career with Nike—an experience she detailed in her tell-all memoir last year, The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team. She moved on to the Skechers Performance Elite Team and signed with Oiselle in 2014 and then switched to Altra in 2018, but lost her ability to compete at a high level in 2021, when she was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological movement disorder.

Even so, at 45, Goucher remains an important and respected voice in the running community, through her work as a mental health advocate, sports broadcaster and co-host of the podcast Nobody Asked Us with fellow Brooks athlete Des Linden. 

“Kara’s lived experiences and her passion for bringing attention to the humans behind incredible performances,” a release from Brooks read. “The goal is for Goucher to help inspire runners and show how the sport can help change lives.”

(02/04/2024) Views: 247 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Orlando Unveils 2024 US Olympic Marathon Trials Course, Announces Races Will Start at 12:10 and 12:20 pm ET

Just over six months out from race day, organizers revealed the course for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Marathon on Tuesday morning. The race, which will be held on February 3, 2024, in Orlando, Fla., will consist of one 2.2-mile loop through the downtown business district and three 8-mile loops through the city’s Milk District — so-called because it features the headquarters of T.G. Lee Dairy, which has been based in the area for 98 years. It will start and finish at the Walt Disney Amphitheater at Lake Eola Park. None of the course will run through Disney World, which is located to the southeast of the city of Orlando.

Unlike the Paris Olympic marathon course, which features considerable climbing and descending during the middle of the race, the Orlando course is relatively flat, with few small inclines but a variation of just 38 feet (11.6 meters) between the course’s lowest and highest points.

Mid-Day Start Time

Getting the actual course layout is nice but not that significant. We knew the course was going to be mostly flat as Orlando is mostly flat.

Organizers also announced something more significant: the start times for the race. The men will begin at 12:10 p.m. ET with the women to follow at 12:20 p.m. ET. Both races will be shown in their entirety on NBC.

With basically a noon start in Florida, it’s possible the race could be run in quite warm conditions. The debate of the once-rumored but now confirmed 12ish start times has been intense on the LRC forums for over a month now.

A couple of Trials veterans have already shared their thoughts, with Sara Halland Des Linden offering contrasting viewpoints. Hall, who is known to not like racing in hot weather, expressed concern about the heat and the safety of the athletes. She even challenged USATF CEO Max Siegel to run a hot weather marathon this summer.

It must be noted that Orlando has not seen a 90-degree day in February since 1962.

Meanwhile, two-time Olympian Linden had no issue with the start time and thought it could boost her chances of making the team by running smart.

For those interested in what the weather is typically like in Orlando on February 3, here’s a look at the temperature, wind, and dew point at specific times from 2012-22.

If the goal of the Olympic Marathon Trials was for every athlete to run their fastest possible race, obviously it would be better to start the race earlier, but there are other concerns. Television is the reason why the race is being held in the afternoon (there’s not a huge amount of West Coasters watching TV at 5 or 6 a.m. on a Saturday). The 2016 Trials began at 1:06 p.m. ET (10:06 a.m. local in Los Angeles) while the 2020 Trials in Atlanta began at 12:08 p.m. ET. Both races were shown on NBC in their entirety.

The fact is, in professional sports, there are often competing interests — what’s best for the athletes isn’t always what’s best for TV, and someone is going to be unhappy. USATF designed its US championships schedule this year with athletes in mind but the result was that USATF could not get the US outdoor championships shown on NBC. With the Trials, USATF is prioritizing the broadcast on NBC with the athletes a secondary consideration. You can be mad about one of those two things, but not both.

Orlando can be warm in February, no doubt about it — from 2012-22, the average temperature at 2 p.m. on February 3 was 73 degrees. But guess which race also is warm? The Olympic marathon. The Olympic marathons will be held on July 10-11, 2024. On July 10-11 this year, it was 73 degreees at 10 a.m. in Paris, which is when the marathons would be nearing their completion (8 a.m. start times).

In general, we are for athletics to be on live TV so we are fine with the races being scheduled for 12:10 and 12:20. We do believe if the temperatures are truly extreme (say 75 or higher at the start, certainly 80), USATF should move the race up and show it on tape-delay. But if you’re looking for conditions that mirror the Olympic marathon, Orlando in February is not a bad facsimile.

The one big issue we still have is with the new Olympic qualifying system. If you haven’t run under 2:11:30 for the men or 2:29:30 for the women during the qualifying window, you aren’t going to the Olympics even if you are in the top three. We think that’s ridiculous but those are the rules. That’s tough to do in warm weather. While it’s very unlikely someone who hasn’t run at least 2:11:30 or 2:29:30 in the window finishes top three, it could happen in the case of someone just moving up the marathon like Molly Seidel did in 2020 or someone coming back from injury or maternity leave like Kellyn Taylor.

We really wish WA would simply accept the top three from the Trials since the US is sending three per gender most likely no matter what happens, but we’d rather take the small risk that someone without the 2:11:30/2:29:30 times is top three and have the race be on live TV than put it early in the morning. Plus athletes could chase the time up until April 30 and we’d love to see WA have to take the PR hit of someone on the way back from maternity leave having to run a time. Maybe it would finally make them let the spots go to countries as long as the countries hold legitimate trials.

(To cover all our bases, it’s worth noting there’s a small chance on the men’s side that the US has only one or two qualified men’s athletes at the start of the Trials. We’re pretty sure we’ll have at least three but it’s not set in stone and we won’t know for sure until after the fall marathon season is over. If that’s the case, then the start time is more problematic as the US men would either have to hit the 2:08:10 auto standard or run fast enough to raise their world ranking into a qualification spot. If that’s the case and the US men don’t have three spots guaranteed, we think the men’s start time should be moved up and shown on tape delay but keep the women’s race as scheduled).

Talk about the trials on our forum:

(01/21/2024) Views: 258 ⚡AMP
by Let’s Run

47-Year-Old Marathoner to Run Fifth Olympic Trials

Dot McMahan qualified with a 2:35:20 at Grandma’s Marathon, averaging 5:56 per mile pace. 

In the closing miles of the 2023 Grandma’s Marathon, last June in Duluth, Minnesota, Dot McMahan struggled to calculate how close she was to the Olympic Marathon Trials standard. 

“I was just trying to run under 2:37, but you know, math, when you’re running a marathon, isn’t always so good,” she said. 

McMahan was more than fine. In her 20th marathon, she ran 2:35:20, smashing the standard and qualifying for her fifth Olympic Marathon Trials. 

Her coach, Kevin Hanson, of Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, was ecstatic. And so was her husband, Tim, and their 14-year-old daughter, El, who is also a runner. El told her mom when they FaceTimed after the race that she had run her fastest time since turning 40. “She knew all my stats,” McMahan said. “She was over the moon.” 

McMahan, 47, and Des Linden, 40, are thought to be the only female athletes in the field running a fifth marathon trials. McMahan is the oldest women’s qualifier. On the men’s side, Fernando Cabada, 41, has qualified for five marathon trials and is entered in the race. Abdi Abdirahman, a five-time Olympian, is also 47, the oldest in the men’s field. 

It was never a given that McMahan would make a fifth trials, especially after USA Track & Field announced in late 2021 the tougher entry standards for the 2024 race. For the 2020 race, held in Atlanta, women had to run 2:45 to make the Trials. This time around, they had to be 8 minutes faster. 

“I was very supportive of the fact that they needed to make it quicker, for the women, at least,” she said. “It kind of loses its luster if we make it too easy. That said, I think it was a little harder than I [predicted], which was maybe 2:40, 2:39. So 2:37 was like, woah, okay, we’ve got a real goal here. I never assumed that was going to be a walk in the park.” 

McMahan, who was eighth at the Trials in 2008 and ninth in 2012, knows she’s unlikely to finish that close to the front again, unless something unexpected happens in Orlando. While her teammates have moved to Orlando for the month to prepare for potential heat and humidity, McMahan is still training in Rochester Hills, Michigan, where she works as an assistant track coach at nearby Oakland University and has a pet sitting business. (She’s also an online coach with McKirdy Trained.)

And she wants to be home with her family. McMahan’s only warm weather preparations at the moment are the occasional treadmill run. “It’s in a space that we can enclose a little more and turn the heat up,” she said. But simulating humidity “gets a little tricky. You don’t want to grow a bunch of mold in your house.”

That’s typical of the practicality McMahan brings to her training. Her longevity, she says, is a function of doing most of the same hard work she’s always done. She’ll reach 105–110 miles per week at her peak training for a marathon, and she’ll double three or four days per week. She used to run 120. 

“I’ve tapered back a little bit, but I’m still doing the majority of it,” she said of the Hansons-Brooks training. “That’s what it takes.” On January 14, McMahan ran the Houston Half Marathon as a tuneup and finished in 1:16:02, averaging 5:48 pace. She was very happy with the result. 

Hanson said he and McMahan frequently joke that she’s old enough to be the mother to some of the athletes on the team who are fresh out of college. But he notes McMahan’s durability. She has avoided serious injuries. “That’s what becomes career-ending in your 40s,” he said. “In your late 40s, any injury that sets you back sometimes ends things, because it’s just to hard to get back into it.” 

McMahan is practical about other matters, too. 

For one, she refuses to dye her hair. “I do have a considerable amount of gray hair,” she said. “I’m not doing anything about it; I’m just going to let it come in.” Plus, she said, her husband has gray hair. They’d look silly together if she dyed her hair and he didn’t. “We’re aging,” she said. “It’s just life.”

She devotes about an hour to getting ready for her morning runs—warming up, doing mobility exercises, and “making sure things are firing.”

When her pace slows on afternoon recovery runs, she doesn’t dwell on it. On December 26, she did a hard 20-miler. The next day, she was tired, and she had 10 miles in the morning, and 4 miles in the afternoon on the schedule. She did those runs, but she ran them slowly—for her. 

“I think in the past, I would have beat myself up mentally looking at my watch and being like, ‘You’re running 8-minute pace; this is so ridiculous,’” she said. 

Now, she thinks: Are you happy? Are you healthy? Does anything hurt? This is what recovery pace is for you. “I listen to my body, and I don’t get upset thinking it should be a certain pace,” she said. “That’s my concession to age.” 

(01/20/2024) Views: 305 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Hellen Obiri faces tough field in Boston Marathon title defence

Hellen Obiri will defend her Boston Marathon title on April 15 in what the organizers say is the strongest elite women's field in the history of the race.

However, Obiri faces a Herculean task in a race where 19 athletes have personal bests under 2:23:00 including Olympians, World Marathon Majors winners and national stars.

Obiri, a two-time Olympic 5000m silver medalist — now living in Colorado, USA — won the 2023 edition thanks to a perfectly-timed sprint in the final kilometer.

Obiri who has been named in Kenya’s marathon team for Paris Olympics is also the New York City Marathon champion.

“I am excited to return to the 2024 Boston Marathon to try to defend my title,” said Obiri, who finished last year’s race in 2:21:38.

“Boston is an historic race and I would like to add my name further to its history on April 15. Winning such a historic marathon with my family waiting at the finish line was an amazing experience.”

A trifecta of Ethiopians with lifetime bests under 2:18:00 will take to the Boston course.

Worknesh Degefa, the 2019 Boston Marathon champion, returns, while 2:17:36 marathoner Tadu Teshome will make her Boston debut. Hiwot Gebremaryam aims to improve on her eighth-place finish last year.

World championships medallist Senbere Teferi who won the 2022 B.A.A. 5K in a course record of 14:49 is also in the mix.

Experienced marathoner Ababel Yeshaneh –second in 2022 and fourth in 2023— will try to become the seventh woman from Ethiopia to win the olive wreath in Boston.

Joining Obiri from Kenya are 2022 World Athletics Championships Marathon silver medalist Judith Korir, two-time Boston Marathon winner Edna Kiplagat, four-time top-ten finisher Mary Ngugi-Cooper and 2022 New York City Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi.

Helah Kiprop, who holds a silver medal in the marathon from the 2015 World Athletics Championships and has earned wins in Tokyo, Copenhagen and Paris, makes her second career Boston start. From Morocco is 2023 world marathon bronze medalist Fatima Gardadi.

Desiree Linden leads the American contingent six years after winning the title. Linden has finished in the top-five five times and holds the third-fastest time by an American ever on the Hopkinton-to-Boston route (2:22:38).

Linden will run her fifth U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February. Joining her is Emma Bates, who finished fifth last year in the second-fastest time ever by an American woman at Boston (2:22:10).

“At this point in my career it’s an easy decision to return to the Boston Marathon and make it my top priority race of the spring,” said Linden.

“I can’t wait to take on the iconic course for an 11th time and have the opportunity to mix it up with some of the best runners in the world.”

Jack Fleming, President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association said: “The Boston Marathon is proud to showcase the world’s best athletes year in and year out on Patriots’ Day.”

“This year’s women’s field is exceptionally fast and showcases many who’ve been podium finishers on the global stage. It’ll make for an exciting race from Hopkinton to Boston, and we look forward to crowning our champions on April 15,” he added.

(01/12/2024) Views: 252 ⚡AMP
by Angwenyi Gichana

Strongest Women’s Field in the race history at Boston Marathon 2024

The 128th Boston Marathon presented by Bank of America will feature the strongest women’s field in race history, led by defending champions Hellen Obiri and Susannah Scaroni. A total of 19 women with personal bests under 2:23:00 will line up in Hopkinton aiming to earn the Open Division crown, including Olympians, Abbott World Marathon Majors winners, and national stars. In the Wheelchair and Para Athletics Divisions, Paralympic hopefuls from around the world are set to compete.

“The Boston Marathon is proud to showcase the world’s best athletes year in and year out on Patriots’ Day,” said Jack Fleming, President and CEO of the Boston Athletic Association. “This year’s women’s field is exceptionally fast and showcases many who’ve been podium finishers on the global stage. It’ll make for an exciting race from Hopkinton to Boston, and we look forward to crowning our champions on April 15.”

Women from 20 countries will be competing as part of the Bank of America Professional Athlete Team.

“Each year, the Boston Marathon sets the bar higher with an unbelievable level of athletic talent, and its impact on communities around the world,” said David Tyrie, chief digital officer and chief marketing officer, Bank of America. “The 128th Boston Marathon builds on a rich history and will continue to be an inspiration for all athletes.”

HELLEN OBIRI SET TO DEFEND OPEN DIVISION TITLE

Hellen Obiri, a two-time Olympic silver medalist from Kenya now living in Colorado, won the 2023 Boston Marathon thanks to a perfectly-timed sprint in the final mile. Adding to her trophy case, Obiri also took home the 2023 B.A.A. 10K title in June and the TCS New York City Marathon crown in November.

“I am excited to return to the 2024 Boston Marathon to try to defend my title,” said Obiri, who finished last year’s race in 2:21:38. “Boston is an historic race and I would like to add my name further to its history on April 15. Winning such an historic marathon with my family waiting at the finish line was an amazing experience.”

A trifecta of Ethiopians with lifetime bests under 2:18:00 will take to the Boston course. Worknesh Degefa, the 2019 Boston Marathon champion, returns, while 2:17:36 marathoner Tadu Teshome will make her Boston debut and Hiwot Gebremaryam aims to improve upon her eighth-place finish last year. Also from Ethiopia is World championships medalist Senbere Teferi; she won the 2022 B.A.A. 5K in a course record 14:49 and has shown talent at the longer distances. Experienced marathoner Ababel Yeshaneh –second in 2022 and fourth in 2023— will try to become the seventh woman from Ethiopia to win the olive wreath in Boston.

Joining Obiri from Kenya are 2022 World Athletics Championships Marathon silver medalist Judith Korir; two-time Boston Marathon winner Edna Kiplagat; four-time top-ten finisher Mary Ngugi-Cooper; and 2022 TCS New York City Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi. Helah Kiprop, who holds a silver medal in the marathon from the 2015 World Athletics Championships and has earned wins in Tokyo, Copenhagen, and Paris, makes her second career Boston start. From Morocco is 2023 World Athletics Championships Marathon bronze medalist Fatima Gardadi.

Desiree Linden leads the American contingent six years after winning the 2018 title. Linden has finished in the top-five five times, and holds the third fastest time by an American ever on the Hopkinton-to-Boston route (2:22:38). Linden will run her fifth U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February. Joining her is Emma Bates who finished fifth last year in the second-fastest time ever by an American woman at Boston (2:22:10).

“At this point in my career it’s an easy decision to return to the Boston Marathon and make it my top priority race of the spring,” said Linden. “I can’t wait to take on the iconic course for an 11th time and have the opportunity to mix it up with some of the best runners in the world.” 

128TH BOSTON MARATHON PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S FIELDS

 Women’s Open Division

Country

Personal Best

Worknesh Degefa

ETH

2:15:51 (Valencia, 2023)

Tadu Teshome

ETH

2:17:36 (Valencia, 2022)

Hiwot Gebremaryam

ETH

2:17:59 (Valencia, 2023)

Judith Korir

KEN

2:18:20 (Eugene, 2022)

Meseret Belete

ETH

2:18:21 (Amsterdam, 2023)

Tiruye Mesfin

ETH

2:18:47 (Valencia, 2022)

Worknesh Edesa

ETH

2:18:51 (Berlin, 2022)

Zeineba Yimer

ETH

2:19:07 (Berlin 2023)

Senbere Teferi

ETH

2:19:21 (Berlin, 2023)

Dera Dida

ETH

2:19:24 (Berlin, 2023)

Edna Kiplagat

KEN

2:19:50 (London, 2012)*

Mary Ngugi-Cooper

KEN

2:20:22 (London, 2022)

Nazret Weldu Gebrehiwet

ERI

2:20:29 (Eugene) NR

Ababel Yeshaneh

ETH

2:20:51 (Chicago, 2019)

Vibian Chepkirui

KEN

2:20:59 (Vienna, 2022)

Helah Kiprop

KEN

2:21:27 (Tokyo, 2016)

Hellen Obiri

KEN

2:21:38 (Boston, 2023)

Emma Bates

USA

2:22:10 (Boston, 2023)

Desiree Linden

USA

2:22:38 (Boston, 2011)*

Buze Diriba

ETH

2:23:11 (Toronto, 2023)

Sharon Lokedi

KEN

2:23:23 (New York City, 2022)

Malindi Elmore

CAN

2:23:30 (Berlin, 2023)*

Fatima Gardadi

MOR

2:24:12 (Xiamen, 2024)

Angie Orjuela

COL

2:25:35 (Berlin, 2023) NR

Fabienne Konigstein

GER

2:25:48 (Hamburg, 2023)

Jackie Gaughan

USA

2:27:08 (Berlin, 2023)

Dominique Scott

RSA

2:27:31 (Chicago, 2023)

Grace Kahura

KEN

2:29:00 (Sacramento, 2023)

Katie Kellner

USA

2:32:48 (Berlin, 2023)

Briana Boehmer

USA

2:33:20 (Sacramento, 2021)

Dylan Hassett

IRL

2:33:25 (Pulford, 2021)

Parley Hannan

USA

2:33:43 (Carmel, 2023)

Sara Lopez

USA

2:33:48 (Eugene, 2023)

Annie Heffernan

USA

2:34:33 (Lowell, 2023)

Nera Jareb

AUS

2:35:00 (Queensland, 2022)*

Johanna Backlund

SWE

2:35:10 (Hamburg, 2019)

Argentina Valdepenas Cerna

MEX

2:35:34 (Chicago, 2022)*

Ariane Hendrix Roach

USA

2:35:39 (Sacramento, 2022)

Michelle Krezonoski

CAN

2:36:39 (Sacramento, 2022)

Shannon Smith

USA

2:36:43 (Columbus, 2023)

Caroline Williams

USA

2:37:01 (Sacramento, 2022)

Gina Rouse

USA

2:37:10 (Sacramento, 2023)*

Kim Krezonoski

CAN

2:37:20 (Sacramento, 2022)

Abigail Corrigan

USA

2:37:45 (Sacramento, 2023)

Marissa Lenger

USA

2:38:41 (Chicago, 2022)

Emilee Risteen

USA

2:38:46 (Duluth, 2023)

Isabelle Pickett

AUS

2:38:46 (Valencia, 2023)

Allie Hackett

USA

2:38:52 (Duluth, 2023

Mary Christensen

USA

2:38:55 (Big Bear, 2023)

Olivia Anger

USA

2:39:13 (Indianapolis, 2023)

April Lund

USA

2:39:23 (Houston, 2022)*

Sarah Short

AUS

2:39:51 (Valencia, 2023)

Maura Lemon

USA

2:40:30 (Valley Cottage, 2023)

Sarah Sibert

USA

2:40:31 (Philadelphia, 2022)

Lauren Ames

USA

2:40:34 (Valley Cottage, 2023)

Kassie Harmon

USA

2:41:48 (Utah Valley, 2023)*

Elizabeth Camy

USA

2:42:51 (Sacramento, 2022)*

Alexandra Niles

USA

2:43:23 (Hartford, 2022)*

Amber Morrison

USA

2:43:50 (Sacramento, 2022)*

Mindy Mammen

USA

2:44:01 (Duluth, 2023)*

Ziyang Liu

USA

2:44:56 (Eugene, 2023)*

*Denotes Masters Division (40+)

(01/10/2024) Views: 311 ⚡AMP

Vicoty Chepngeno eager to make full marathon debut at Chevron Houston Marathon

After failing to make her full marathon debut at the 2023 Tokyo Marathon, Vicoty Chepngeno will finally do it at the Chevron Houston Marathon.

Philadelphia Half Marathon champion Vicoty Chepngeno will open her season with a full marathon debut at the Chevron Houston Marathon on Sunday, January 14.

Chepngeno set the course record with her 2022 Aramco Houston Half Marathon victory, winning in a time of 1:05:03, which is still the fastest half marathon time ever run in North America to date.

“I am very excited to make my marathon debut in Houston. It is a race I know well. This makes me feel at ease as I focus on what I need to do to achieve my goal of winning,” Chepngeno said as per Endurance Sports Wire.

The race will also feature the return of three-time champion Bruktayit Degefa of Ethiopia. These three wins leave Degefa tied on the most victories ever secured by one runner, all of which are among the six fastest times in race history.

Chepngeno and Degefa will compete with top contenders including Canadian national record holder Natasha Wodak and three-time Rome Marathon champion Rahma Tusa of Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, last year’s men’s race came down to a sprint finish with Kenya’s Dominic Ondoro beating Ethiopia’s Tsedat Ayana and both will make a grand return this year. Ayana will take the opportunity for revenge, while Ondoro will look for his third Houston victory.

“I love the course, the city, and the friendly cheering crowds. To come to the start line, run a good race, and get a win will be wonderful,” said Ondoro, the two-time Houston Marathon champion.

Ethiopia’s Deresa Geleta will also be in the starting line, coming into the race with a personal best of 2:05:51. He has a chance to break the tape on what will be his 28th birthday.

In 2023, he was runner-up at the Dubai Marathon in February and won the Beijing Marathon in October. Also expected to be up front, are 2022 Chevron Houston Marathon winner James Ngandu of Kenya and Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi who was fifth in the 2023 Boston Marathon.

“You can always count on exciting storylines and dramatic finishes at the Chevron Houston Marathon.

“Fans will want to make sure they are in front of their TV or lined up on Lamar Street when the runners make that final turn toward the finish line,” said Carly Caulfield, Race Director and General Manager of the Houston Marathon Committee.

The races will be aired live on ABC13 in Houston and streamed around the world on ABC13's official portal featuring commentary from two-time Olympian and Boston Marathon champion Desiree “Des” Linden.

(01/08/2024) Views: 306 ⚡AMP
by Abigael Wuafula

Calgary woman distraught after F-word engraved on marathon medal

A marathon medal represents months of dedication, perseverance and the sense of personal accomplishment that comes from completing 42.2 gruelling kilometres. Adorchita Di Perno of Calgary felt that way about her 2023 Chicago Marathon medal, until she saw that the expletive “F***” had been engraved onto the back of it.

Di Perno had just finished her 22nd marathon in 3:34:29, achieving a Boston-qualifying time. She was able to get 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden to sign the back of her medal and, for the first time, decided to get it engraved. After the race, she dropped it off at the U.S. running chain Fleet Feet Chicago, where she wrote down her name, phone number and bib information for the engraving.

After waiting a few hours, Di Perno arrived back at the store to collect her medal. She wasn’t wearing her glasses at the time, but immediately noticed that it had the wrong time (5:02:32). Then, when she put on her glasses, her heart stopped as she read the profanity engraved onto the medal.

“This is my medal, but this is not my time or name,” says Di Perno. “And I did not ask for the F-word.”

Di Perno immediately spoke to store management, and after much confusion, they apologized for the mistake, giving her the option of a new, untarnished medal. “I did not want to give it up, because I ran for it and earned it,” says Di Perno.

Later that day, staff at the store figured out that Di Perno, whose bib number was 5773, had dropped off her medal at the store at around the same time as another runner, with a bib number 57731, dropped off her own medal, and the engravers got the two customers confused.

We reached the other runner, who told us, “I was supposed to get my medal back on Oct. 12,” and who confirmed that they requested the F-word be engraved on her medal, but declined to say why. “I haven’t heard from [Fleet Feet] and did not know [my medal] was given to someone else,” they said.

When Canadian Running showed them a photo of the medal, they were unhappy about the black marker on it, not realizing it was Linden’s signature. 

Looking back on the mishap, Di Perno says she was upset at the time, but now, it’s hard not to laugh about it.

The Calgarian hopes to one day become an Abbott World Marathon Major six-star finisher, and is waiting to hear whether she’s been selected to race the Tokyo Marathon in 2024.

(10/22/2023) Views: 451 ⚡AMP
by Running Magazine

Scientists Are Trying to Clone Des Linden’s Heart

“Digital twin” technology might unlock new insights into performance and health—for everyone

In the age of lab-tested super shoes, blood lactate testing, and endless GPS watch data, companies are constantly searching for new ways to improve athletic performance. The next step for precious marginal gains might be in the virtual world.

This week, the IT and consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced they’re creating a “digital twin” of marathon runner Des Linden’s heart. According to TCS, which is the title sponsor for road races like the New York City Marathon and London Marathon, “A Digital Twin Heart is a real-time, virtual replica of a person’s heart, offering precise data on its function, efficiency, and response to varying conditions.” If that sounds like something out of a Stanley Kubrick film, we’re right there with you. In plain English, TCS hopes that a digital heart can provide precise, real-time training feedback to help inform athletes in the future. For example, imagine if you could analyze your cardiac activity at a certain point in a race. Say, mile 15 of the New York City Marathon, on hilly Queensboro Bridge. 

TCS believes that using that kind of data could unlock new insights: “Imagine the difference it might make to see, measure, and monitor a heart going through such significant stress—and predict with high accuracy how it will perform. Imagine you could hold a realistic digital copy of this heart in your hand or explore inside its ventricles at every beat.”

Linden, 40, is a two-time Olympian and is perhaps most known for winning the 2018 Boston Marathon. On Sunday, she set a new American masters record for the marathon, running 2:27:35 to break Deena Kastor’s previous time from 2015 by 12 seconds. Before the race, Linden told Runner’s World that she’s excited about the digital twin, although she hasn’t integrated it into her training yet. She admitted the concept is sci fi-esque. Linden’s virtual heart is still in the early stages, but TCS (which sponsors Linden and Kara Goucher’s podcast Nobody Asked Us with Des & Kara) hopes to have her twin ready in November. Linden has already sat for an MRI, which the TCS team is using to model the replica. Debashis Ghosh, President of the Life Sciences and Healthcare Business Group at TCS, believes that digital twin technology has the potential to not only improve running but inform broader healthcare decisions. 

“Des’s Digital Heart can optimize her training, performance, and recovery but this technology is important for reasons far beyond sports—it can ignite a personal healthcare revolution,” he said in a press release. “With heart disease the leading cause of death in the U.S., it is more important than ever to innovate techniques to keep hearts healthy.” 

The impact of the emerging tech is to-be-determined, but TCS believes that digital twins will be commonplace for civilians by 2035, thanks to recent advancements in fields like AI, machine learning, and virtual reality. 

Who knows—maybe we’ll all be checking the stats of our digital hearts just as much as our cadence or average pace after a run.

 

(10/14/2023) Views: 342 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Two American men achieve the Olympic standard at Chicago Marathon

The American contingent was led by Conner Mantz, who finished sixth overall and ran a personal best of 2:07:47. His former BYU teammate Clayton Young placed seventh in 2:08:00. Both athletes dipped under the Olympic qualifying standard of 2:08:10. 

Running his first marathon since the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Galen Rupp finished eighth in 2:08:48.

Three American women crack the top 10

A year after breaking the national record in Chicago, Emily Sisson returned as the top American with a seventh-place finish in 2:22:09. Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel finished eighth overall in 2:23:07, and Sara Vaughn placed 10th in 2:23:24. 

After turning 40 in July, Des Linden broke the American masters record by running 2:27:35, beating the previous record (2:27:47) set by Deena Kastor.

(10/09/2023) Views: 365 ⚡AMP

The Road to the Paris Olympics and here is What You Need to Know.

American runners are about to begin training for the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon

It’s early October, which means it’s the peak marathon season for many runners. But with an Olympic year on the horizon, it also means America’s top marathoners are about to hit the road to Paris.

More specifically, the men’s and women’s 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon races—scheduled for February 3 in Orlando, Florida—are just four months away. And that means the top U.S. runners hoping to represent their country at  next summer’s Olympics are about to begin preparing for the all-or-nothing qualifying race that decides which six runners will represent Team USA next summer on the streets of Paris.

Although several top American runners are racing the Chicago Marathon on October 8, even they have their eyes on a much bigger prize next February.

“There’s nothing in my mind that compares with being an Olympian and being in the Olympic Games,” says 26-year-old Utah-based Nike pro Conner Mantz, who returns to Chicago after finishing seventh last year in 2:08:16 in his debut at the distance. “So putting that first has been the plan for a long time. We’re just putting that first and we’re working backwards through the season with other races.” 

Registration will open for the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in early November for runners who have surpassed the qualifying times in the marathon (2:18:00 for men, 2:37:00 for women) or half marathon (1:03:00 for men, 1:12:00 for women). The qualifying window extends through December 3—the race date of the last-chance California International Marathon, which for decades has been one of the most popular Olympic Trials qualifying races.

In 2020, a record 708 runners—465 women and 243 men—qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. But USA Track & Field lowered the women’s qualifying standard by eight minutes from the more attainable 2:45:00 plateau, which means there will most likely be a much smaller women’s field this year.

But even so, amid the handful of runners who have a legitimate shot at making the Olympic team, there will also be dozens of dreamers, wannabes, and just-happy-to-be-there elite amateurs who have worked hard, put in the miles, and earned the chance to be on the start line of the deepest and most competitive U.S. distance-running races that only happen once every four years.

The men’s and women’s races will run simultaneously with the men beginning at 12:10 P.M. EST. and the women starting 10 minutes later. Runners have complained that a high noon start means they will be forced to race in hot, humid conditions. Over the past decade, the average temperature on February 3 in Orlando has been 69.6 degrees Fahrenheit at noon, rising to 73.3 at 4 PM. But actual temperatures have varied drastically, from 81 degrees Fahrenheit at 2 P.M. last year to 56 at the same time the year before. USATF officials have responded by saying that the start times are to accommodate live coverage on NBC and to match the expected conditions in Paris.

Here’s an update and overview of what’s next, who the top contenders are, the course, and what to expect in the next four months.

The 26.2-mile U.S. Olympic Trials course runs through downtown Orlando and consists of one 2.2-mile loop and three eight-mile loops. The marathon course will run through several neighborhoods, main streets, and business districts in Orlando, including Central Business District, City District, South Eola, Lake Eola Heights Historic District, Lake Cherokee Historic District, Lake Davis Greenwood, Lake Como, North Quarter, Lawsona/Fern Creek, SoDo District, and the Thornton Park neighborhood. It will then head east to and around The Milk District neighborhood and Main Street. (Notably, the course will come close to Disney World, which is about 15 miles to the southwest.)

Unlike the Olympic Marathon course in Paris, which will challenge runners with significant hills in the middle, the Orlando course is mostly flat. Each loop has a few minor variations in pitch, but only 38 feet separate the high and low points on the course. Ultimately, though, it’s a spectator-friendly route with chances for family, friends, and fans of runners to see the action several times. 

The top women—based on personal best times and recent race results—are Emily Sisson, Emma Bates, Keira D’Amato, Betsy Saina, and Lindsay Flanagan. But the U.S. Olympic Trials races almost always produce surprises with a few great runners having off days and a few good runners having exceptional days, so there is reason to expect the unexpected.

Sisson lowered the American record to 2:18:29 last year when she finished second in the Chicago Marathon. She’s running Chicago again on October 8 along with Bates, who has said she’s hoping to break the American record. In January, Sisson, 31, chopped her own American record in the half marathon in Houston with a 1:06:52 effort, and most recently won the U.S. 20K Championships (1:06:09) on September 4 in New Haven, Connecticut. Bates, also 31, hasn’t raced at all since her sterling fifth-place effort at the Boston Marathon in April, when she slashed her personal best to 2:22:10. 

While Chicago will be another good place to test themselves, both have unfinished business after Bates was seventh at the 2020 Trials and Sisson dropped out near the 21-mile mark.

The same goes for Flanagan, 32, who has been one of America’s best and most consistent marathoners for the past five years. She placed 12th at the trials in 2020. She had a breakthrough win (2:24:43) at the Gold Coast Marathon in 2022 followed by a strong, eighth-place finish (2:26:08) at the Tokyo Marathon earlier this year. In August, she ran perhaps the best race of her career, when she finished ninth (2:27:47) at the world championships in Budapest amid hot, humid conditions.

The 38-year-old D’Amato, meanwhile, just capped off another strong season with a 17th-place showing (2:31:35) at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, a year after finishing eighth in the world championships and setting an American record 2:19:12 at the 2022 Houston Marathon. She was 15th at the Trials in 2020 in 2:34:24, just two years into her competitive return to the sport after having two kids and starting a career in real estate in her early 20s.

“It’s such a huge goal of mine to become an Olympian,” says D’Amato, who lowered Sisson’s U.S. record in the half marathon with a 1:06:39 effort at the Gold Coast Half Marathon on July 1 in Australia. “It’s really hard for me to put words into this because my whole life, wearing a Team USA jersey has been like a huge dream. And when I left the sport (temporarily), I felt like I said goodbye to that dream and I kind of mourned the loss of being able to represent my country. I feel like it’s the greatest honor in our sport to be able to wear our flag and race as hard as possible.”

Saina, a 35-year-old Kenya-born runner who ran collegiately for Iowa State University, became a U.S. citizen in late 2021. She placed fifth in the 10,000-meters at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro while competing for Kenya. She’s spent the past several years splitting time between Kenya and Nashville, Tennessee, where she gave birth to a son, Kalya, in December 2021.

She’s returned with a strong fourth-place 1:11:40 result at the Tokyo Half Marathon last October and a fifth-place 2:21:40 showing at the Tokyo Marathon in February. In May, Saina won the U.S. 25K Championships in Michigan. Two weeks ago she broke the tape at the Blackmores Sydney Marathon in Australia in 2:26:47.

Other top contenders include but are not limited to Tokyo Olympics bronze medalist Molly Seidel (who’s personal best is 2:24:42), 2022 U.S. Olympic Trials champion Aliphine Tuliamuk (2:24:37, 11th in Boston this year), Susanna Sullivan (2:24:27 personal best, 10th in London this year), two-time Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon winner Des Linden (2:22:38), and Sara Hall (2:20:32, fifth at last year’s world championships), plus Kellyn Taylor (2:24:29), Nell Rojas (2:24:51), Sarah Sellers (2:25:43), Lauren Paquette (2:25:56), Dakotah Lindwurm (2:25:01), Annie Frisbie (2:26:18), Sara Vaughn (2:26:23), Tristin Van Ord (2:27:07), and Jacqueline Gaughan (2:27:08).

The list of potential men’s top contenders isn’t as clear-cut, partially because there are so many sub-2:11 runners and several fast runners who are relatively new to the marathon. But all that suggests a wide-open men’s race where more than a dozen runners are legitimately in the mix for the three Olympic team spots. That said, the top runners on paper, based on both time and consistent results over the past few years, are Scott Fauble, Jared Ward, Galen Rupp, Conner Mantz, Leonard Korir, Matt McDonald, and C.J. Albertson.

The 31-year-old Fauble, who was 12th in the Olympic Trials in 2020 and owns a 2:08:52 personal best, has finished seventh in the Boston Marathon three times since 2019 and also finished seventh in the New York City Marathon in 2018. Ward is a 2016 U.S. Olympian and has three top-10 finishes at the New York City Marathon and a 2:09:25 personal best from Boston in 2019. He’s 35, but he just ran a 2:11:44 (27th place) at the Berlin Marathon in late September.

Rupp, who won the past two U.S. Olympic Trials Marathons and earned the bronze medal in the marathon at the 2016 Olympics, is nearing the end of his competitive career. He boasts a 2:06:07 personal best and has run under 2:10 more than any American in history, including when he finished 19th at the world championships (2:09:36) last year. He’s a bit of a wild card because he’s 37 and hasn’t raced since his lackluster 17th-place showing at the NYC Half Marathon (1:04:57) in March, but the world will get a glimpse of his fitness in Chicago this weekend.

Mantz followed up his solid debut in Chicago last fall with a good Boston Marathon in April (11th, 2:10:25) and solid racing on the track and roads all year, including his recent runner-up showings at the Beach to Beacon 10K in August and the U.S. 20K Championships in September.

McDonald, 30, who was 10th in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, has quietly become one of the best marathoners in the U.S. while serving as a postdoctoral associate in chemical engineering at M.I.T. His last three races have clocked in at 2:10:35 (Boston 2022), 2:09:49 (Chicago 2022), and 2:10:17 (Boston 2023). The only other runner who rivals that kind of consistency is Albertson, 29, who has run 2:10:23 (Boston 2022), 2:10:52 (Grandma’s Marathon 2022) and 2:10:33 (Boston 2022) in his past three marathons and was seventh in the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2020 (2:11:49).

The men’s race will likely have a mix of veteran runners and newcomers who have run in the 2:09 to 2:10 range since 2022. Among those are 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials runner-up Jake Riley (2:10:02 personal best), who is returning from double Achilles surgery; 2016 U.S. 10,000-meter Olympian Leonard Korir (2:07:56), who ran a 2:09:31 in Paris in April; Zach Panning (2:09:28, plus 13th at the world championships in August); U.S. 25K record-holder Parker Stinson (2:10.53); Futsum Zienasellassie who won the California International Marathon last December in his debut (2:11:01) and then doubled-back with a new personal best (2:09:40) at the Rotterdam Marathon in the spring; Abbabiya Simbassa, who ran a solid debut marathon (2:10:34) in Prague this spring; and Eritrean-born Daniel Mesfun (2:10:06) and Ethiopian-born Teshome Mekonen (2:10:16), who both received U.S. citizenship within the past year; and solid veterans Nico Montanez (2:09:55), Elkanah Kibet (2:10:43) and Nathan Martin (2:10:45).

Additional sub-2:12 runners who will  be in the mix are Andrew Colley (2:11:26), Clayton Young (2:11:51), Brendan Gregg (2:11:21), Josh Izewski (2:11:26), Jacob Thompson (2:11:40), and Kevin Salvano (2:11:49).

As noted previously, some top contenders will season their marathon legs one final time at the flat and fast Chicago Marathon on October 8. An even more select few will opt for the New York City Marathon on November 5. After that, nearly every American with eyes set on an Olympic berth will double-down over the holiday season for that one final, critical marathon training cycle. Expect to see a wide range in heat training, from sauna protocols, to warm weather training trips, to simply an adjusted race day strategy.

Of course, with the Olympic Marathon falling under the purview of World Athletics, qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Marathon team is not quite as simple as finishing on the podium in Orlando. Any American looking to have a breakout performance and finish within the top three at the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon will need to have run under 2:11:30 for men and 2:29:30 for women within the qualification window, which spans from November 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024. Given the possibility of oppressively hot and humid temps on February 3 in Orlando, they’re best bet is to secure that time now.

These qualification standards are in accordance with a new rule from World Athletics, which allows national Olympic committees to circumvent the typical Olympic qualification process of running under 2:08:10 for men and 2:26:50 for women, or being ranked among the top 65 in the world on a filtered list of the top three athletes from each country. The catch, though, is that three other runners from said country must have met one of these two standards. If this sounds complicated, that’s because it is.

For the hundreds of elite amateurs on the cusp of hitting that coveted U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying time, it’s do or die mode. While a few made the cut at the Berlin Marathon on September 24, one of those opportunities was lost when the Twin Cities Marathon was canceled on October 1 because of excessive heat. Temperatures are shaping up for an auspicious day in Chicago this weekend, and many more will give it a final shot at the Columbus Marathon on October 15; Indianapolis Monumental Marathon on October 28; the Philadelphia Marathon on November 18; and the last-call California International Marathon, a point-to-point race ending in Sacramento, California on December 3. 

Ultimately, only six American runners will likely continue on along the road to Paris and earn the chance to run in the men’s and women’s Olympic marathons next August 10-11. For a handful of younger runners, the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials will be a motivation to reinvigorate the Olympic dream or keep a faint hope alive, at least until the 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials that will determine the team for the Los Angeles Olympics. But for many runners, the journey to the U.S. Olympic Trials in Orlando will lead to the end of their competitive road running careers as new jobs, young families, a switch to trail running, and other priorities will take hold. 

“I think the Olympic Trials is an important part of American distance running,” says Kurt Roeser, 36, a two-time U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier who works full-time as a physical therapist in Boulder, Colorado. “I’m glad that they kept it the same event for this cycle and hopefully for future cycles because it gives people like me a reason to keep training. I’m older now and I’m not going to actually have a chance to make an Olympic team, but for somebody that’s fresh out out of college and maybe they just barely squeak in under the qualifying time, maybe that’s the catalyst they need to start training more seriously through the next cycle. And maybe four years from now, they are a serious factor for making the team.” 

(10/07/2023) Views: 324 ⚡AMP
by Outside Online

Should I Tune In or Tune Out During My Run?

How to think on challenging runs depends on your intention. Here’s what the research says. Runners often develop a type of tunnel vision. Case in point: In 2006, Scott Douglas went to India to cover a five-day stage race in the Himalayan foothills. The day before the race, he and the eventual winner went for a run from the race headquarters in Mirik. There was a small lake with a perimeter path nearby that was perfect for the occasion—they could easily settle into a rhythm and crank out several 10-minute loops until it was time to call it a day.

When Douglas got back to the lodge, his wife, Stacey, asked, “Wasn’t that amazing!?” It turned out that Stacey had also gone to the lake for a stroll and had come upon a couple dozen women celebrating the Diwali festival. Clad in bright yellow and red wraps and head scarves, they squatted next to the lakeside trail with big bowls of bananas, melons, other fruits, vegetables, and flowers as offerings.

Douglas can relay these details, thanks to a photo Stacey took, but he hadn’t noticed them—not on the first loop around the lake, or the third, or any other one. Without making a conscious decision to do so, he’d been entirely focused on his run.There are far loftier examples of intense concentration in running history. In the 2004 Olympic marathon, Deena Kastor didn’t realize she was in the bronze-medal position until the final 100 meters. During the 2018 Boston Marathon, which was run in an apocalyptic rain-and-wind storm, eventual winners Des Linden and Yuki Kawauchi didn’t know they had taken the lead until well after doing so.

Some of this seeming tunnel vision stems from runners focusing on what are known as “process goals,” such as running the next mile as well as they’re able, rather than thinking about outcomes, such as winning an Olympic medal. Also, during hard efforts, seasoned runners are good at suppressing strong emotions like anxiety that can lead to focusing on distracting and irrelevant information.

Let’s look in more detail at how successful runners hone their ability to concentrate on the task at hand to the point of seeming oblivious to much of what’s going on around them.

Throughout his career as one of the world’s leading exercise psychology researchers, Noel Brick asked athletes ranging from beginners to Olympians a simple question: What were you thinking? The answers provide fascinating insight into what athletes think about during peak performances. Brick has lost count of the number of times he has sat captivated as athletes recounted how they struggled with, and overcame, the challenges they experienced when racing and training.

One of the most common themes that emerges is that running fast is incredibly hard, both physically and mentally. This is true for novices and Olympians alike. But what separates the best from the rest is their ability to extract exceptional performances through a process of deep focus and concentration. These athletes know what they need to focus on and, more importantly, have the mental tools in their kit to do it. Take this example from an elite cross-country runner whom Brick interviewed following one of her toughest races:

I went through two and four [kilometers] on the back of the leading group. And going into the third lap, I started falling off the leading group. And it was everything for me to stay attached [because I was distracted by a spectator] and suddenly I just lost a second’s concentration, and it was like, “Don’t lose concentration, concentrate now,” and I covered the move. I finished second in that race. But if I had fallen off that group, I wouldn’t have gotten back on and that would have been it.

Triumph in a footrace—however that’s defined for you—often requires winning the battle that takes place within your mind. For athletes like the one quoted above, this means resisting a range of different distractions. Some are external, like a spectator who momentarily captures the athlete’s attention. Others are internal thoughts, like worry or the sometimes-irresistible urge to stop or quit.

So how do they do it? What tools do athletes use to remain focused and on task? Just as important, how do they get their concentration back if they lose it?

The first answers to these questions began to emerge in the late 1970s. Across a series of studies, psychologist William Morgan and exercise physiologist Michael Pollock interviewed recreational and elite distance runners to discover what they focused on during training and competition.

Their findings revealed that national- and world-class marathoners adopted what Morgan and Pollock called an “associative strategy.” As described in a classic study, these runners “paid very close attention to bodily input such as feelings and sensations arising in their feet, calves, and thighs, as well as their respiration; . . . [their] pace was largely governed by ‘reading their bodies’; . . . [and] they constantly reminded or told themselves to ‘relax,’ ‘stay loose,’ and so forth.”

The details of what elite runners paid attention to when racing surprised the research team. Up until this point, the consensus was that it was best to tune out from bodily sensations. After all, if running fast was hard, then surely paying less attention to physical feelings would be better than focusing in on them.

But Morgan and Pollock soon realized that these elite marathoners were different from the recreational athletes they usually interviewed. Not only were their physical performances miles apart, literally and figuratively; so, too, were their mental strategies.

What non-elites preferred to do was adopt a range of distraction strategies. In other words, they preferred to tune out from the physical sensations they experienced. They did so by thinking about past memories, imagining listening to music (remember, this was pre-earbuds), singing, or, for one runner, visualizing stepping on the faces of two coworkers she detested.

With these two separate ways of thinking, we’ve now got a dilemma. What is the best way for athletes to think? Which type of strategy helps most: tuning out or tuning in?

These were the questions that grabbed Brick’s attention when he began to plot his PhD research in 2012. By 2014, he had published a review of 112 studies on the attentional strategies of endurance athletes—that is, what they focus their attention on. In it, he sifted through the evidence supporting distraction, on the one hand, and association, on the other.

Before we can answer this question, we first need to consider a much simpler one. What do we mean by best? If better—that is, faster—performance is the goal, then athletes probably want to avoid being distracted at all costs.

But that’s not the full picture. In Brick’s review, he noted that distractions, such as daydreaming, conversing with a training partner, or focusing on scenic views, can help to reduce boredom and make a run more enjoyable. In other words, when the outcomes are less about going faster and more about feeling better, then distraction is best. A recreational runner whom Brick interviewed put it like this:

My mind just wanders whenever I’m out. It’s as if it’s a freedom. It’s my time and it’s me thinking about my things, you know? You’re not sitting in the house or you’re not working or you’re not thinking about things. You’re just thinking about your things.

What these insights tell us is that distraction has its place in our mental tool kit. It can be a useful way to manage our emotions, especially when we need to switch off, chill out, and get away from it all.

One great way to do this is to spend time in natural spaces, such as the countryside or a park. Studies have found increased brain activity relating to calmness and meditative thoughts when people exercise in a park versus crowded urban settings. In the latter, brain activity linked with negative thoughts such as rumination has been found to be much higher than when people exercise in more natural settings.

But this is only half the story. Although positive distractions like nature have benefits, performing to the best of their capabilities is a more immediate priority for athletes during competition. In these instances, tuning in might be a better approach than tuning out.

When Brick dug deeper into the results of more than 35 years of research, he soon discovered that the effects of association strategies on performance were much more nuanced than previously thought. When athletes focused excessively on bodily sensations like breathing or muscle soreness, their performance suffered. Doing so made tasks feel harder. In contrast, strategies like keeping relaxed or optimizing movement technique improved performance, sometimes without increasing how hard a task felt.

An intricate study involving 60 experienced runners helps to explain some of these nuances. These individuals completed three 5-kilometer runs, once on a laboratory treadmill, once on a 200-meter indoor running track, and once on a flat outdoor road route. Half the runners—the association group—were asked to tune in every 30 seconds during each run to the heart rate and pace readings on their watch. The other half were assigned to a distraction strategy of listening to music through headphones. All participants were instructed to run as fast as they would like during each 5-kilometer run. The research team also recorded how good or bad runners felt, how hard each run was perceived to be, and their final 5-kilometer times.

In line with research on other distraction strategies, the findings revealed that those who listened to music felt calmer and more tranquil during their runs. Runners also felt better when running outdoors than they did in the indoor settings.In terms of performance, however, runners in the heart rate and pace-monitoring group ran faster than the music group by an average of 1 minute and 47 seconds. In a sport in which participants obsess over every second of a race time, that’s a significant difference!

Just as interesting were the effects of location on performance. Although 5-kilometer times were slower on the treadmill than both the track (by 3 minutes and 46 seconds) and the road route (by 4 minutes and 2 seconds), running on the treadmill felt hardest. This was most likely because of the treadmill environment, devoid of mental stimulation or distraction. In this setting, athletes probably focused on little else other than how tough their run felt. In contrast, running the outdoor road route, the fastest location of all, felt easiest.

Periodically monitoring bodily sensations and tuning into pace allows for better performance. In contrast, tuning out might result in a slower pace but can help make an activity feel more pleasant. In effect, our focus matters, and when best performance is a priority, then having the mental skill to focus effectively is essential.

(09/23/2023) Views: 294 ⚡AMP

Des Linden and Kara Goucher Demystify Drug Testing Requirements in Pro Running

Specifically, how the “whereabouts” policy really works.

Drug testing in professional running has made plenty of headlines over the years—even as the process itself has remained somewhat mysterious to spectators of the sport. But on this week’s episode of Nobody Asked Us, Des Linden and Kara Goucher pulled back the curtain and offered a rare peek inside anti-doping practices, including the scoop on “whereabouts” policy. 

Linden began the conversation by recalling that she’d been drug tested in the early morning of the previous weekend. “We could demystify the process because I think… people don’t hear too much about it except as just a quick tweet or [via] somebody who hasn’t really been through it or has a story that is uninformed because they heard it from someone who heard it from someone,” said Linden. “We’ve been through this a number of times so I thought we could talk about the process a little bit.” 

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency, athletes who are part of the Registered Testing Pool (those operating at the highest level of their sport) must submit to regular drug testing year-round. To accommodate the testing, these athletes must offer up their home address (or address for their overnight accommodations), competition schedules, and any alternative locations where they may be found. They also must provide a 60-minute time slot for each day where they will be available for testing. 

“You have one hour where they will not inform you that you’re there or that they’re looking for you. They will just knock and you have to be where you put your whereabouts for the day,” said Linden. The WADA stipulates that those who miss the test may be liable for, you guessed it, a ‘missed test,’ and infraction that can lead to bans.

Linden shared that her hour window is first thing in the morning when she knows she’ll have to pee. “Five to six a.m. is my hour window usually at home, and then they wake me up and I have to go to the bathroom right away,” she said. Goucher shared that she also opted for a morning slot for drug testing until her son was born. “After I had Colt, I did change it to the afternoon—just because there were many a time where he got woken up… so I did change it to like two because I was always home by then and just napping or playing with him,” she shared. 

The WADA also reserves the right to test athletes directly post-race. Goucher and Linden said this process often involves waiting around after you’ve crossed the finish line until you have to go. In this case, drug testers follow athletes into the bathroom. The process can be awkward—especially if it’s a numbers one and two kind of situation. “They’re like tuck your shirt up into your bra and pull your pants down, I’m going to watch,” explained Kara. “At first it feels weird, but later in life you’re like ‘Pfff, whatever. Here we go.’”

Once, athletes had to fax their schedules to the governing bodies for drug testing, according to Linden and Goucher. But nowadays, the test scheduling happens via an app. “If you’re in a certain pool… then you have to put in one hour where you’re going to be and they can’t inform you,” said Linden. “And then you have the rest of the day where you sort of give them an idea of where you are and how they can get a hold of you.” They may choose to test runners outside their chosen hour; however, they must work with the athlete to find a location that works, per the two runners’ conversation. Goucher said that a drug tester once met her at a preschool orientation, for example. 

“[The calendar] is really easy to change if your life changes. It’s not like you’re married to the calendar or anything,” said Goucher. “You have up to one minute prior,” agreed Linden, adding that she updated it last minute on a recent vacation. “It’s not impossible, and for me, what I get frustrated with is that this should be a priority in your life,” said Goucher. “This is what you do for a living. You’re trying to achieve all your goals.” 

Linden and Goucher also shared personal stories about their testing experience, so make sure to check out the full episode. 

(09/02/2023) Views: 314 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Stacy Ndiwa debuts World Marathon Majors in Chicago

Seven months after winning the Los Angeles Marathon, Stacy Ndiwa will be returning to American soil in search of her first World Marathon Majors title at the Chicago Marathon on October 8.

The former Commonwealth Games 10,000m silver medalist, will be up against top marathon runners across the world led by the defending champion Ruth Chepngetich.

Chepngetich has a personal best of 2:14:18. Another Kenyan Joyciline Jepkosgei (2:17:43) will also be competing. 

Ndiwa, who is now training in Iten, said her preparations are in top gear and she is hoping to return good results.

“This will be my first time to compete in World Marathon Majors and I am ready for the world,” she said.

The former Africa 10,000m champion made her debut in the 42km race last year, placing fourth at the Istanbul Marathon in 2:31.53 and went ahead to win the Los Angeles Marathon in 2:31.00 in March last year.

 

In May, Ndiwa won the second edition of the Iten 15km Road race and went ahead to finish second at the Boston 10km in 31:25 behind champion Hellen Obiri (32:21) with Sheila Chepkirui (31:27) third in an all-podium Kenyan sweep.

“This time, I have had a very busy schedule and I need to crown it all by posting better results in Chicago,” said the athlete who compete for the National Police Service.

“This will be an avenue for me to enter into the big marathon big league. Competing at the World Majors Marathon is not a walk in the park and  I really need to work hard,” she said.

 

Others in the race will be the Ethiopian quartet of Genzebe Dibaba (2:18:05), Tigist Girma (2:18:52), Sutume Kebede (2:18:12) and Ababel Yesheneh (2:20:51).

Emily Sisson (2:18:29) will lead the home team consisting of Des Linden (2:22:38), Emma Bates (2:23:18), Aliphine Tuliamuk (2:24:37), Nell Rojas (2:24:51), Molly Seidel (2:24:42), Dakotah Lindwurm (2:25:01), Sara Vaughn (2:26:23), Gabriella Rooker ( 2:27:38), Diane Nukuri (2:27:50) and Maggie Montoya (2:28:07).

Reigning London Marathon champion Sifan Hassan (2:18:33) from the Netherlands will also be in the contest.

 

(08/03/2023) Views: 590 ⚡AMP
by Emmanuel Sabuni

2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials to start at 12 noon

USA Track and Field (USATF) caused a stir on social media on Tuesday after announcing in an email addressed to athletes that the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials would begin at 12 noon, due to broadcasting rights. The marathon trials are scheduled to take place in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 3, 2024.

The late start time has already caused worry for many coaches and athletes due to the potential for high temperatures. In February, the average temperatures in Orlando range from a low of 13 C to a high of 23 C, but in recent years, it has not been uncommon for temperatures to soar to 30 C–which would be detrimental to performance and potentially unsafe for elite marathoners.

According to Runners World, the email sent to athletes mentions that the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) in Orlando has extensive experience in planning and executing high-level events and has contingencies in place for any potential challenges, including weather-related ones.

The decision to set the start time at noon is believed to be influenced by executives at NBC, the network broadcasting the event. The email highlights that the race will be televised live on NBC for three hours, providing coverage of the men’s and women’s runners and races.

The Paris Olympic marathon, which is also expected to be warm, is scheduled for Aug. 10–the middle of summer in the French capital. But both the men’s and women’s races are set to begin at 8 a.m. local time. This disparity in start times has added to the concerns raised by the late start for the U.S. Trials in Orlando.

The U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials serves as the selection race for the men’s and women’s Olympic teams that will compete at the Summer Games in Paris. The top three finishers who also meet World Athletics’ qualifying standards will go on to represent Team USA at the Olympics.

Some athletes and coaches have expressed concern, while others seem to be looking forward to it. 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden tweeted: “Warmer temps should slightly minimize the pace of super shoes and reward smarter racing. Count me in!”

U.S. ultrarunner Camille Herron said “We are seven months out from the Olympic Marathon Trials. No excuses to not be prepared for a potentially hot day in Florida.”

Renowned U.S. marathon coach Kevin Hanson, who currently has 13 athletes (eight women and five men) qualified for the U.S. Trials, stressed his disappointment that athletes’ health is not taken into consideration. “There is no amount of TV coverage that is worth the health of our athletes,” Hanson tweeted.

This isn’t the first time USATF has faced criticism for its handling of extreme heat during events. At the 2021 Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore., where temperatures were forecasted to reach highs of 40 C, several events were rescheduled for safety. However, the heptathlon was not, and athlete Taliyah Brooks collapsed on the track due to the heat and later filed a lawsuit against USATF.

In the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles, which began at 9 a.m., some athletes struggled on an unusually warm day, with temperatures reaching the mid-70s Fahrenheit. Shalane Flanagan, who placed third in 2:29:19, collapsed at the finish line, and the organizing committee and USATF later faced criticism for not providing adequate water on the course for the athletes.

(08/01/2023) Views: 442 ⚡AMP
by Marley Dickinson

Ice Plunges/Cold Baths for Muscle Recovery

The old adage goes “no pain, no gain,” and no crowd knows that better than long distance runners do. It’s the philosophy their entire sport is predicated on, pushing through the pain for hundreds of miles each month over hills and on concrete in the pursuit of athletic success. 

 

With grueling training methods comes a pressing need for improved methods of recovery. If you don’t give your muscles time to repair the microscopic tears that develop during strenuous exercise, you aren’t going to become a better athlete. Instead, you’ll end up with strained muscles and time away from sport that could otherwise be devoted to making gains. 

Sensitive tissues like tendons and ligaments are similarly important to safeguard, as repetitive stress injuries are a massive concern in a sport where you’re going to be covering long distances.

 

One way of recovering after a workout that’s gaining increasing popularity is the use of cold plunges to spur muscle repair. This can take a number of different forms, from soaking in a cold bath replete with ice water for five to ten minutes after a workout to the expensive cryotherapy technologies used by high profile athletes (although as this is becoming more popular, it will likely be more accessible to the general public in the near figure as demand increases and technology improves).

 

 

Many former Boston Marathon winners have incorporated cold plunges into their daily routines. Two-time Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi, Desiree Linden who won the Boston Marathon in 2018, and Kara Goucher who has competed in the Boston Marathon ten times. These runners all say that ice baths help them to reduce muscle soreness and inflammation, and to feel more refreshed and ready to train the next day. They typically do ice baths for 10-15 minutes after their hardest workouts or after the marathon itself. A BetMGM Massachusetts bonus code will come in handy for anyone looking to get in on the action in the next Boston Marathon. The 2023 New York City Marathon will be held on Sunday, November 5, 2023, and you can bet many runners are using ice plunges ahead of the big race (and most certainly after they’re done running) for muscle recovery.

 

Here’s a look at why cold plunges are all the rage these days, including how to take one for maximum effect and the numerous advantages of exposing sore muscles to chilly temperatures.

Part of the beauty of ice water therapy is that you don’t have to be rich to have access: anyone with a shower or bath can turn the tap to the lowest temperature setting and sit in the water for up to ten minutes following a workout. 

 

What’s the benefit, though? It comes down to basic science. Exposure to (relatively) freezing temperatures makes your blood vessels contract as your body pulls in heat to your core to keep you warm. This could reduce swelling and inflammation, and doing so immediately after a workout could give you a jumpstart on post exercise soreness because of that. 

 

Once you step out of the ice bath, the reverse process happens as your muscles warm up in the outside air and your blood vessels begin to dilate again. This circulatory rush kick starts the process of muscle repair, bringing vital nutrients to where they’re needed most.

 

 

One thing that’s important to note, though, is that the advantages of an ice bath can change quite a bit depending on the type of exercise you’re pursuing. Endurance runners have a much different set of goals than a powerlifter or anaerobic sprinter does, so this article doesn’t apply to everyone. Endurance runners engage in aerobic activity, plateauing at 80 to 90 percent of their maximum output for extended periods of time (although they may need a quick burst to finish a race or pass a competitor).

 

Sprinters and lifters deploy massive bursts of all their energy in one go, and as such they have different recovery needs: it’s critical to cool down properly after engaging in strenuous exercise so that you don’t expose yourself to cold temperatures before you’re ready, causing muscles to tense up.

(07/07/2023) Views: 798 ⚡AMP

Kenyan Celestine Chepchirchir eyes Boston Marathon title

The 127th edition of Boston Marathon which will be run on Monday has attracted 18 Kenyan athletes, among them big names who will contest for honors in the world’s oldest marathon race.

Winners in both categories will go home US$150,000 (Sh19,662,647.40) richer, and the top 10 finishers will also be awarded in the open division.

There will be a new champion in the women’s category since last year’s winner Peres Jepchirchir will not compete. Jepchirchir has opted to compete in the London Marathon.

Cellestine Chepchirchir is among the Kenyan women in contention for the title. For the last three months, she has been preparing for the race in Kapsabet, Nandi County.

She will come up against Kericho-based Sheila Chepkirui, former New York Marathon champion Joyciline Jepkosgei, the 2017 London Marathon champion Edna Kiplagat, 2021 Amsterdam Marathon Angela Tanui and Fancy Chemutai.

Other Kenyans in the women’s filed include Maurine Chepkemoi, Mary Ngugi, Viola Cheptoo, Vibian Chepkirui and Hellen Obiri.

The men’s category will have world marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge, defending champion Evans Chebet, the 2021 Boston Marathon champion Benson Kipruto, John Korir, Mark Korir, 2021 New York Marathon champion Albert Korir, Nobert Kigen, and Michael Githae.

In an interview with Nation Sport last week, Chepchirchir who has been training in Kapsabet, Nandi County, and has so far competed in 12 marathon races worldwide said she was delighted to be making her maiden appearance in a World Marathon Majors event this year.

Chepchirchir said that being named among elite athletes for Boston Marathon comes with a big responsibility because there will be a lot of expectations on her.

 “I’m privileged to compete with some of the star athletes I have been watching on TV in major races. When I was named among the competitors, I immediately knew I was going to have to work extra hard, and to run a good race. It’s my first major marathon race and my training has gone well. I believe I will run a good race,” said Chepchirchir.

The soft-spoken athlete, who is coached by her husband Nahaman Serem, has competed in 12 marathon races. She finished fourth last year in Seoul Marathon, which gave her a reason to continue running.

Last year, she had been named among the elite athletes for Chicago Marathon but she delayed in processing her travel documents and missed the race.

“I would have competed in my first major marathon last year at the Chicago Marathon but my travel visa delayed. I was also prepared for the race. Unfortunately it didn’t happen but I thank God because I have another race to run this year. My aim will just to run a good race,” added Chepchirchir, who has a personal best time of 2 hours, 20 minutes and 10 seconds.

Other competitors in the women’s category include world champion Gotytom Gebreslase from Ethiopia, 2016 Boston Marathon champion Atsede Baysa, 2020 Tokyo Marathon champion Lonah Salpeter from Israel, 2018 Boston Marathon champion Desiree Linden from USA, among others.

(04/11/2023) Views: 801 ⚡AMP
by Bernard Rotich

The Boston Marathon has never been easy, that’s why Des Linden keeps coming back

The conditions were wretched when Des Linden first toed the starting line in Hopkinton in 2007. An amped-up nor’easter brought rain, a 30-mile-per-hour headwind, and soggy, chilly misery for the runners.

“I was one probably of the few people who felt, that was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Linden recalled years later. “I’m going to do this forever. I loved it.”

On Patriots Day Linden will lace up for her 10th Boston Marathon. During the 16 years since her first appearance here, which also was her 26-mile debut, Linden has won the laurel wreath (”storybook stuff”), lost by two seconds on a sprint down Boylston Street, finished fourth twice, and 17th in a “total suffer-fest.”

Every trip here is a homecoming, said the California native and Michigan resident who has a dog named Boston. What brings Linden back is the race’s incomparable history, the feeling of family that she gets from the Boston Athletic Association, the exuberant crowds along the course, “the greatest finish line in our sport,” and the unchanging challenge from the lumpy layout and mercurial weather.

“We’re in this era where we want the marathon to be easier than ever before,” said Linden. “We want it faster, we want it flatter, we want wind blockers, we want shoes that bounce you forward, we want better gels. You name it, we’re trying to dumb this thing down. Boston is already not going to manage well with a lot of those things, then you throw in the weather conditions. I’ll take the tough one every time.”

Boston never has been easy. For decades there were no mile markers or water on the course. There was no prize money until 1986 — the reward was a medal and a bowl of canned beef stew. The starter fired the gun and sent you off. If you ended up sitting on the curb, cramped and blistered, the “meat wagon” picked you up.

Linden loves the purity of a race that always has the same course but rarely the same conditions. “A lot of people get surprised by it,” she said. “Well, it’s Boston in the spring.”

Boston is the recurring theme of “Choosing To Run,” Linden’s new memoir written with Bonnie D. Ford. Chapters recounting her 2018 triumph, the first by an American woman here in 33 years, are interspersed with a narrative of her evolution from a track racer to a marathoner.

Linden, who’ll officially become a master when she turns 40 in late July, is in the final stretch of her elite career, which she hopes will include a third Olympic team next year in Paris. Maybe she’ll run a fall marathon to prep for the Orlando trials in February. “Or maybe I just spin the legs and do some fast stuff,” she mused.

At this stage of her career it’s all about being smart and patient. “It’s a challenge letting go of your prime years, but there’s also a reality to it,” Linden said. “It’s recalibrating and readjusting what the goal is. I’m learning.”

One significant concession is her weekly mileage, which Linden has reduced from 120 to between 95 and 105. “I have this mentality that I’m being lazy if I’m not doing 115-120-mile weeks,” she said. “ ‘You’re not being lazy,’ my coach [Walt Drenth] said. ‘It’s just not practical.’ ”

At her age, maintaining speed and power are more important than training volume. “So work on what’s going away,” Linden said, “and rely on what you’ve done in the past as far as the volume goes.”

The lighter workload paid dividends at the recent New York City Half Marathon, where she placed fifth in 1 hour, 12 minutes, 21 seconds, the top American finisher. “It was the first time in a while that I got good momentum from a race,” she said.

Up against a stacked Boston field that includes Gotytom Gebreslase and Lonah Salpeter, the world gold and bronze medalists; two-time Boston victor Edna Kiplagat; returning medalists Ababel Yeshaneh and Mary Ngugi; two-time Olympic track medalist Hellen Obiri; and Amane Beriso, a sub-2:15er, Linden is realistic about her chances.

“Top 10 is a great goal at times and particularly this year — the field’s incredible,” said Linden, who was 13th last year. “Just mixing it up and racing is fun for me.”

At this point in her career Linden has little left to chase. She was seventh in the 2016 Olympics, cracked the top 10 at the 2009 world championships, and has posted top-five efforts in New York, Chicago, and Berlin.

But her crowning achievement came in Boston five years ago when she slogged her way through punishing wind and chilly rain to win a race that she didn’t plan on finishing. “It’s not gonna be my day,” Linden told Shalane Flanagan after 6 miles. “I think I’m going to drop out soon.”

But she pushed on, thinking more about survival than victory. “I was running in fear for most of the race,” Linden said. “Even halfway through Boylston I was thinking, if someone comes up on my shoulder I know I can respond.”

She won by more than four minutes, to her astonishment. Linden’s jacket and headband were added to the BAA memorabilia collection, whose artifacts date from the 19th century. “The same museum I had once viewed as an unattainable sanctum,” she wrote in “Choosing To Run.”

Gloria Ratti, the BAA’s longtime first lady, had given Linden the tour before her 2007 debut. That, she said, “made me fall in love with 26.2.”

“Everyone talks about Boston’s special history,” Linden said. “You can feel it on the course, you can see it on race day. But to have that collection of the very first medals and the shoes that were being worn … ”

(04/10/2023) Views: 739 ⚡AMP
by John Powers

3-time champion Molly Huddle is ready for 2023 NYC Half

The United Airlines NYC Half came into Molly Huddle‘s life in 2014 and it was one of the key turning points in the now 38 year-old’s storied career.  Never a fan of cross country or indoor track, the 28-time national champion liked to de-camp from her Providence, R.I., home in the winter to put in her pre-season base miles in the warmth of Arizona.  The NYC Half, with its mid-March date, was the perfect race to close-out her winter training block.  Her long-time coach Ray Treacy, whom Huddle affectionately calls “The Guru,” gave his blessing and she signed-up for the 2014 race.  It would be her first-ever half-marathon.

With the temperature right at the freezing mark, Huddle ran the entire race with the leaders.  She went through the first 10-K in 33:01, and the second in a much faster 32:21 as the pace heated up.  Although too far behind eventual winner Sally Kipyego (1:08:31), she finished a close third to eventual 2014 Boston Marathon champion Buzunesh Deba, 1:08:59 to 1:09:04.

“It was good,” a shivering Huddle told Race Results Weekly’s Chris Lotsbom that day.  “I think I stuck my nose in it in the beginning and the distance got to me a little in the end, but it was definitely a fun experience. I definitely want to do another one.”

The rest, shall we say, is history.

For the next three years Huddle would repeat the same winter program, training in Arizona then coming to New York for the NYC Half before starting her track season*.  She won in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and in the 2016 race she set the still-standing USATF record for an all-women’s race: 1:07:41.  During her reign at the top, she beat top athletes like Sally Kipyego, Caroline Rotich, Des Linden, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Buzunesh Deba, Emily Sisson, Edna Kiplagat, Diane Nukuri, and Amy Cragg.  She also lowered her 10,000m personal best from 31:28.66 to an American record 30:13.17, a mark which would stand for more than six years until Alicia Monson broke it just 11 days ago at The Ten in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.  She also collected $65,500 in prize money from the event which is organized by New York Road Runners.

Huddle returns to the NYC Half for the first time in six years on Sunday, but she’s no longer focused on winning.  The race comes about 11 months after she, and husband Kurt Benninger, had their first child, daughter Josephine Valerie Benninger, whom Huddle calls “JoJo.”  Speaking to Race Results Weekly at a press event yesterday in Times Square, she reflected on her history with the race.

“The last time I did the Half was 2017, I think, so a long time,” said Huddle, wearing a warm hat and jacket on a cold, late-winter day.  “Great to be back.  Great to be running again seriously after having the baby in April.  So, this will be a good test.”

Huddle has been slowly building her fitness since giving birth to Josephine.  She first returned to racing last August at the low-key Bobby Doyle Summer Classic 5 Mile in Narragansett, R.I., –very close to her home– clocking 29:17.  Since then she has run in a series of local races in New England –a pair of 10-K’s, a 5-K cross country, and a half-marathon– to regain her racing chops.

Then, in January of this year, she ran the super-competitive Aramco Houston Half-Marathon and clocked a very good 1:10:01, a mark which qualified her for the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon.  She went back to training, and the NYC Half should give her a good reading on her progress.

“I’m really happy to fit it back in the schedule,” said Huddle, who is still breastfeeding and will be pumping while she is in New York (Kurt is with Josephine at home in Providence).  “I feel like I’m having more baseline workouts now, less of a building phase and more back to normal.  I’ve had a few little injury problems last month, but I’m coming around.”

A well-traveled athlete, Huddle is sticking close to home for her races now.  New York is a three and one-half hour drive (or train ride) from Providence.

“I love racing within a drive distance of home now because of the baby, and this is an easier race for me to get to,” Huddle said.  “So that’s good.”

Sunday’s race has yet another purpose for Huddle.  It will kick-off her training for her next marathon, a distance that she hasn’t taken on since the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta when she was forced to drop out with an injury.  Although she wasn’t at liberty to reveal which race it will be, she said that the timing of the NYC Half was perfect, just like it always was.

“So, I’m really focusing more on the roads now; it fits in really well with that plan now,” Huddle said.  She continued: “This is going to kick off a marathon build-up for me, so this will be a really good race to fit into my marathon block as we go forward the next two months.”

(03/19/2023) Views: 813 ⚡AMP
by David Monti

Eilish McColgan will tackle NYC Half on the road to London

In-form Brit is set to face Hellen Obiri, Molly Huddle, Senbere Teferi and Karoline Grøvdal in New York next week as Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo lead the men’s field

After breaking Paula Radcliffe’s long-standing British 10,000m record in California last weekend, Eilish McColgan’s next big race in the run-up to her marathon debut in London is the United Airlines NYC Half on March 19.

She will face Hellen Obiri, the former world cross-country champion and two-time Olympic medalist, plus three-time NYC Half winner Molly Huddle of the United States.

Senbere Teferi of Ethiopia, who holds the course record with 67:35, also runs, in addition to 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden of the US and reigning European cross-country champion Karoline Bjerkeli-Grøvdal of Norway.

McColgan’s British record is 66:26 from last year’s RAK Half, but Obiri’s best is 64:22 from the same RAK Half, Teferi ran 65:32 in Valencia in 2019 and Huddle has a best of 67:41 from 2016.

Obiri and McColgan clashed at the Great North Run in 2021 with the Kenyan breaking away in the latter stages to win by six seconds. But the Briton has been in terrific form lately with a 30:00.86 national record for 10,000m at the Sound Running Ten event in California.

Her marathon debut in London is set to take place on April 23 too.

McColgan is among a number of Brits set to race in New York City too with others being Jess Warner-Judd, Chris Thompson and Andy Butchart. Warner-Judd ran a half-marathon PB of 67:19 in Houston in January and will be looking to revise those figures.

(03/09/2023) Views: 666 ⚡AMP
by Jason Henderson

Ethiopian runner breaks women-only world 50K record in South Africa

Ethiopia’s Emane Seifu Hayile broke the women-only 50K record at a race in South Africa on Sunday, running 3:00:29. Competing in the Nedbank Runified Breaking Barriers Ultramarathon in Gqeberha, a coastal South African city, Hayile shaved almost four full minutes off the previous women-only world record. She was less than a minute off American Des Linden‘s 50K women’s mixed-gender race world record of 2:59:54 from 2021. 

Women-only races mean that there are no men in the field. Because of the potential benefit that female runners can receive while pacing off male athletes, World Athletics recognizes two types of records for road races, making it possible for Hayile’s 50K record to co-exist with the one belonging to Linden, which she ran alongside male pacers. 

Despite running in a women-only race, Hayile came extremely close to claiming the outright 50K world record, finishing mere seconds behind Linden’s time. She ran with two fellow Ethiopians and a Swedish athlete in the opening stages of the race, passing through 10K in just over 36 minutes and 15K in 54. At around 20K, Hayile and her compatriots dropped the Swedish runner and carried on in a three-way battle. At the halfway mark, the trio clocked a split of 1:30:28, just shy of sub-three-hour pace. 

Over the next 10K or so, Hayile dropped her two remaining challengers, and by the 40K checkpoint she was almost a minute ahead of second place. She clocked a 2:32 marathon and managed to accelerate as she neared the finish, crossing the line just north of three hours. Hayile won the race by six minutes and bettered the women-only record by four minutes. 

“I am lost for words and don’t know how to describe it,” Hayile told World Athletics after the race. “All in all, it was an exciting event. I’m very happy.”

In the men’s race, South Africa’s Tete Dijana ran a course record of 2:39:04. This result is the second-fastest 50K of all time, sitting just 20 seconds behind American CJ Albertson‘s world record of 2:38:44, which he ran in Oct. 2022. 

(02/27/2023) Views: 711 ⚡AMP
by Ben Snider-McGrath

New Mom and Elite Runner Molly Huddle is Ready to Take on the NYC Half

Molly Huddle admits making time for running is considerably more challenging since giving birth to a baby girl last April, but she’s excited to be back racing at a high level as a healthy and fit mother.

The 38-year-old two-time U.S. Olympian ran so well at the Houston Half Marathon on January 15, she’s optimistic about racing a late spring marathon. Next up, Huddle will be racing in the deep women’s elite field at the United Airlines NYC Half on March 19 for the first time since taking her third consecutive victory in the event in 2017.

Huddle began to gradually increase her training late last summer under the guidance of longtime coach Ray Treacy and ran a couple of moderately fast 10Ks and a half marathon last fall. But then she had a big breakthrough when she ran 1:10:01 in Houston. Even though that was well off the 1:07:25 PR she recorded while setting an American record in 2018, it was still an impressive effort.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d get back to even doing that, so that was good,” Huddle said. “Sometimes it’s good to just start 100 percent over and slowly build back. I think that was the only way I was gonna do it. I haven’t really been tested at a level that would be like trying to PR or qualify for a U.S. team, so we’ll see how it goes. But I think there’s a lot out there. I mean, just because you’re not making the Olympic team, you can still do a lot in the sport.”

Huddle said she generally felt good while running about 40 miles a week through eight months of her pregnancy, but then backed off and did whatever she could manage in the final month before Josephine was born on April 26. After giving birth, Huddle took extra time to recover until she felt like she could run consistently, but she also consulted with a pelvic floor specialist to make sure she wouldn’t risk injury by incorporating too much training intensity too soon.

While she’s earnestly back to training at a high level, she admits she’s still managing the physical challenges of breastfeeding, as well as the new time constraints as she and her partner, Kurt Benninger, the head cross country coach and assistant track coach at Brown University, juggle their schedules to maintain their professional lives while prioritizing their efforts to care for their daughter.

Huddle is grateful for the continued support from her longtime sponsor Saucony, as well as the increased honest public and social media conversations among women athletes becoming mothers. She says she’s taken cues, inspiration and advice from fellow elite-runner moms Aliphine Tuliamuk, Faith Kipygeon and Sara Vaughn, among others.

“It’s just a long timeline, but it’s been great to see other women do it,” Huddle says. “It takes some time and some, you know, intentional exercises and some pacing yourself, but then once you get the green light after, you know, a certain amount of months, I feel like you can do everything you were doing before.”

Huddle won the NYC Half in 2015, 2016, and 2017,with her winning time of 1:07:41 from 2016 setting an event record that stood until last year. She’ll line up against Ethiopia’s two-time Olympian Senbere Teferi, who last year broke Huddle’s event record while winning in 1:07:35. She is also a two-time world championships silver medalist and the 5K world-record holder (14:29) for a women-only race.

Other Notable Runners for the NYC Half

Two-time Olympic medalist and seven-time world championships medalist Hellen Obiri of Kenya, three-time Olympian and four-time European Championships medalist Eilish McColgan of Scotland, and two-time U.S. Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden will also toe the line in New York. Other top Americans include Dakotah Lindwurm, Erika Kemp, Maggie Montoya, Annie Frisbie and Jeralyn Poe.

Huddle hasn’t announced which marathon she’ll run in late April or early May. Her last effort at 26.2 miles was four years ago this spring, when, despite having had an off day in London, she finished 12th place in a new PR of 2:26:33. She was considered one of the favorites to finish in the top three at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in Atlanta three years ago this week, but dropped out near mile 20, partially because she was still struggling with an Achilles injury.

(02/27/2023) Views: 845 ⚡AMP
by Brian Metzler, Melanie Mitchell

Joshua Cheptegei will battle Jacob Kiplimo and Galen Rupp at 2023 United Airlines NYC Half

 The 2023 United Airlines NYC Half on Sunday, March 19 will feature professional athletes from 17 different countries, including 19 Olympians, 11 Paralympians, and seven past event champions, making it one of the most diverse fields in the race’s history.

The men’s open division will be headlined by Olympic champion Joshua Cheptegei, half-marathon world-record holder Jacob Kiplimo, and Olympic medalist Galen Rupp. Defending champion Senbere Teferi, Olympic and World Championships medalist Hellen Obiri, and three-time event champion Molly Huddle will lead the women’s open division. A trio of past TCS New York City Marathon and United Airlines NYC Half champions – Susannah Scaroni, Manuela Schär, and Daniel Romanchuk – will feature in the strongest wheelchair field in event history, which will also welcome Paralympic medalists Catherine Debrunner and Jetze Plat for the first time.

These athletes will lead more than 25,000 runners at the United Airlines NYC Half, which goes from Brooklyn to Manhattan, passing historic landmarks, diverse neighborhoods and sweeping views of the city along the way before ending in Central Park.

Men’s Open Division

A pair of Ugandans, two-time Olympic and four-time World Championships medalist Cheptegei and Olympic medalist and two-time World Champion Kiplimo, will race head-to-head in the men’s open division as they take on an NYRR race for the first time. At 26 years old, Cheptegei is the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the 5,000 meters and world champion in the 10,000 meters, as well as the world-record holder in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters. In November 2021, Kiplimo set the half marathon world record of 57:31 to win the Lisbon Half three months after taking a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics in the 10,000 meters. Then last year, the 22-year-old won bronze in the 10,000 meters at the World Championships. He won the gold medal, ahead of Cheptegei’s bronze, at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia, on February 18.

“I’m very excited for my first race in New York City, the United Airlines NYC Half,” said Cheptegei. “One of the primary goals for 2023 is to defend my 10,000-meter gold medal from the World Championships, and this half marathon is an important part of those preparations. The race seems like a great tour of New York City and it’s very cool that we get to run through Times Square. There’s so much running history in New York, and the city has seen so many champions battling it out in iconic races. I want to add to that history.”

“It will be my USA road racing debut at the United Airlines NYC Half next month, and I will try hard to become the first champion from Uganda,” Kiplimo said. “My gold medal from the World Cross Country Championships last weekend shows that everybody will need to be at their best to beat me. I have been told that the NYC Half course is difficult, and a record may not be possible, so I will focus on being the first across the finish line in Central Park.”

Challenging the Ugandan pair will be two-time U.S. Olympic medalist and Chicago Marathon champion Rupp, last year’s United Airlines NYC Half runner-up Edward Cheserek of Kenya, and past event champions Ben True of the United States and Belay Tilahun of Ethiopia.

Women’s Open DivisionTwo-time Olympian Huddle will be racing the United Airlines NYC Half for the first time since taking her third consecutive victory in the event in 2017. Huddle won the race in 2015, 2016, and 2017, with her winning time of 1:07:41 from 2016 setting an event record that stood until last year. The former American record-holder in the half marathon was fifth at the Houston Half Marathon in January, nine months after giving birth to her daughter.

“In a lot of ways, my three-straight wins at the United Airlines NYC Half really began my transition to full-time road racing. I’m excited to return to the race for the first time in six years, with a different mindset towards training and racing since the birth of my daughter,” Huddle said. “I’m inspired to teach her the value of hard work and resilience, and where better to do that than the city that has seen some of my career’s greatest successes?”

Huddle will line up against Ethiopia’s two-time Olympian Teferi, who last year broke Huddle’s event record, finishing in a time of 1:07:35 to win the race, and returned to Central Park three months later to win her first Mastercard New York Mini 10K. She is also a two-time World Championships silver medalist and the 5K world-record holder for a women-only race.

Two-time Olympic medalist and seven-time world championships medalist Obiriof Kenya, three-time Olympian and four-time European Championships medalist Eilish McColgan, andtwo-time U.S. Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden will also toe the line.

The event will be covered locally in the tri-state area by ABC New York, Channel 7 with live news cut-ins between 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Additionally, the four professional fields will be covered by a livestream, distributed internationally from NYRR’s digital channels, abc7ny.com, and the ESPN App, beginning at 7:00 a.m. ET.

(02/23/2023) Views: 767 ⚡AMP
by NYRR Press Release

B.A.A. announces women’s elite field for 127th Boston Marathon

The Boston Athletics Association (B.A.A.) has revealed the women’s elite field for the 127th Boston Marathon on Monday, April 17. The field features 16 women who have run under 2:21, including the 2022 world marathon champion Gotytom Gebreslase and two-time Boston champion Edna Kiplagat.

Three other notable athletes who are making their Boston debuts are 2022 world championship bronze medallist Lonah Salpeter of Israel, 2022 NYC Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi, and 2022 Valencia Marathon champion (and third fastest woman of all-time 2:14:58) Amane Beriso of Ethiopia.

“I am very excited to run the B.A.A. Boston Marathon this year,” said Salpeter in a press release. “It has always been my dream to run on this course and to experience the incredible atmosphere.” Salpeter is coming off a second-place finish at the New York City Marathon in November and a bronze medal in the 10,000m at the European Championships in August.  

Last year’s second and third-place finishers in Boston, Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia and Mary Ngugi of Kenya, both return with hopes of claiming the top spot on the podium. Yeshaneh came within four seconds of victory, while Ngugi placed second and third in Boston in back-to-back years.

Also back is Joyciline Jepkosgei of Kenya, a past winner of the New York City and London Marathons. Jepkosgei fell shy of her expectations in her 2022 debut, with a seventh-place finish. She will look to better her time of 2:24:43 in 2023.

Among the American contingent are Sara Hall, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Emma Bates, Nell Rojas and 2018 champion Des Linden. Rojas has finished as the top American at Boston two years in a row (fifth in 2021 and 10th, 2:25:57 in April 2022), while Hall and Bates were fifth and seventh in the marathon at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Canada will be well represented in Boston with three athletes on the elite list. Liza Howard, the top Canadian at the 2022 Chicago Marathon, will lead the way with the top qualifying mark of 2:35:29. Howard is an up-and-coming marathoner out of Toronto, who had a breakthrough 2022 with a 19th-place finish in Chicago and a 12th-place result at the Canadian 10K Championships in Ottawa last May. 

Other Canadians on the elite list are 2004 1,500m Olympian and masters athlete Carmen Hussar, who has returned to racing recently, coming off a Boxing Day 10 Miler win in Hamilton, Ont., and Julie Lajeunesse of Montreal, with a personal best of 2:44:49 from the 2022 Chicago Marathon.

(01/09/2023) Views: 688 ⚡AMP
by Marley Dickinson

Emily Sisson, Conner Mantz, Jenny Simpson, Tirunesh Dibaba Headline 2023 Aramco Houston Half Marathon

The Houston Marathon Committee announced today the elite athletes who will chase the $10,000 first-place prize in this historically fast race. Elite fields for the Chevron Houston Marathon which is held simultaneously on Sunday, January 15, will be announced tomorrow.

American records in the half marathon and marathon were set in Houston last year, but by the end of 2022, Emily Sisson had broken them both. Houston will be Sisson’s first race since running 2:18:29 at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October, shattering Keira D’Amato’s record by 43 seconds. Earlier in the year, her 1:07:11 performance in Indianapolis shaved four seconds off Sara Hall’s half marathon record.

“I have really enjoyed racing here in the past and am excited to start my 2023 season in Houston,” said Sisson who finished fifth in the 2019 Aramco Houston Half Marathon. “I felt good coming out of Chicago and am really looking forward to another opportunity to race.”

Sisson will have to contend with one of the greatest distance runners of all time as Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia makes a return to competition after a more than four-year hiatus. The three-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion has not raced since 2018 but says after giving birth to a second child in 2019 and then battling COVID-19, she is ready to add another chapter to her storied career.

“Houston is a famous race and my training has been going well,” said Dibaba, the 2017 Chicago Marathon Champion. “It seemed like the best way to test myself and see what could be next.”

Other top contenders in the women’s half marathon elite field include 2021 Berlin Marathon runner-up Hiwot Gebrekidan of Ethiopia and 2022 World Championship Marathon fourth-place finisher Nazret Weldu of Eritrea. Dom Scott will attempt to break the South African half marathon record of 1:06:44, after a 3rd place finish in Houston last year. The top Americans include 28-time U.S. Champion Molly Huddle who set the then-American record here in 2018, as well as World Champion and Olympic Bronze Medalist Jenny Simpson who will make her half marathon debut.

“All of the racers I am learning from speak so highly of their experience with the Aramco Houston Half Marathon,” said Simpson. “It’s the perfect place for me to make my half marathon debut because the timing, course and organization are so well tested.”

In the men’s race, Edward Cheserek of Kenya, known to fans as “King Ches,” will look to trade in his crown for a king-sized belt buckle. Cheserek is coming off a 1:00:13 half marathon personal best in Valencia last month. “After Valencia this fall, I’ve trained harder and think sub-60 is possible,” said Cheserek, a 17-time NCAA Champion at the University of Oregon. “Houston is known for being a fast course and I want to have a chance at a personal best.”

Cheserek will face off against 2019 champion Shura Kitata of Ethiopia who lines up for his fourth Aramco Houston Half Marathon. With career marathon victories in London, Frankfurt and Rome, Kitata says he “feels home and comfortable in Houston.”

Other contenders to watch are Ethiopia’s Leul Gebresilase Aleme, runner up at last year’s London Marathon, and 2020 Olympian Mohamed El Aaraby of Morocco. The top American in the field is Conner Mantz of Utah. Mantz, the 2020 and 2021 NCAA Cross Country Champion at BYU, made his much-anticipated marathon debut in Chicago last October running 2:08:16, the fastest debut ever by an American-born runner.

Houston-native Frank Lara will return for a second consecutive year. Lara, a former Gatorade Texas High School Runner of the Year, was the top American finisher in the marathon last year. This year he competes in the half marathon.

The HMC is the only organizer to host two World Athletic Gold Label events simultaneously, which are Sunday’s Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon. These two races will have over 27,000 registrants, with an additional 6,000 registrants in the We Are Houston 5K presented by Aramco and Chevron, held on Saturday, January 14.

“Whether you are an elite athlete or a new runner, our committee is dedicated to hosting your individual pursuits with the utmost care and respect for the extraordinary efforts made to toe the start line with us,” said Wade Morehead, Executive Director of the Houston Marathon Committee.

The Aramco Houston Half Marathon and Chevron Houston Marathon will be broadcast on ABC13 from 7 a.m.-10 a.m., on Sunday, January 15 with a race day recap at 10:35 p.m. Joining ABC13’s Greg Bailey and Gina Gaston as expert commentator will be Des Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon winner and 50K world-record holder. Linden made the first of her two U.S. Olympic Marathon teams in Houston in 2012. The trio will be joined by long-time analyst and Rice University cross country coach Jon Warren.

(01/04/2023) Views: 684 ⚡AMP
by Letsrun

Questions Arise About Selection of 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials Site

The USATF national office overrode a recommendation from its board of directors that Chattanooga host the Trials.

Despite a recommendation from the USA Track & Field (USATF) board of directors that Chattanooga be named the host city for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials, the city will not host the event. Instead, Orlando, the only other city to bid on the Trials, was named as the host city. 

According to minutes from the October 9 USATF board meeting held in Miami Beach, recently posted to USATF’s website, the board issued “an advisory vote of approval for the 2024 USATF U.S. Olympic Trials - Marathon bid to be awarded to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Final approval still remains with the USATF National Office.” 

The vote was unanimously carried with one abstention. But the national office announced on November 8 that Orlando would be getting the nod. 

Runner’s World asked USATF spokesperson Natalie Uhl and CEO Max Siegel for clarification on why the national office overrode the board of directors. Uhl referred questions on the matter to Mike Conley, the chairman of the board of directors. 

Conley wrote in an email to Runner’s World, “The [United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee] is looking into the matter and until I hear back from them I have no comment.”

The USOPC was unable to provide comment to Runner’s World immediately, but a spokesman said he would do so at a later time. 

Multiple sources told Runner’s World both Orlando and Chattanooga performed well at site visits. But late in the selection process, after the board vote, Chattanooga’s bid was disqualified.

Neither USATF nor Conley would confirm that Chattanooga was disqualified nor explain why. 

A board member, Jim Estes, had been involved as an advisor on Chattanooga’s bid. Estes had disclosed the relationship from the beginning—board members and other volunteers with USATF are required to file conflict of interest forms and keep them up to date—and Estes recused himself from voting on anything related to the Olympic Marathon Trials. His recusal is noted in the meeting minutes. 

According to his LinkedIn profile, Estes previously worked in the USATF national office in Indianapolis for almost 12 years, from 2005 to 2016. For the last four, he was the director of events. He is now a consultant for events in the running industry. 

Estes declined to comment to Runner’s World. The chief sports officer at the Chattanooga Sports Commission, Tim Morgan, was directing Chattanooga’s bid for the Trials. He did not return multiple calls and messages requesting comment. 

The board bases its vote on recommendations from members of the men’s and women’s long distance running committees, volunteers who visit potential sites and evaluate the bids for what will help produce the strongest Olympic team and be best for the athletes. 

At a November virtual meeting of USATF’s board of directors, the topic of the bid for the Olympic Marathon Trials came up again. But the discussion was held in executive session, meaning that what was discussed remains private. The executive session lasted for 15 minutes. Again, Estes recused himself from the session. 

A similar disagreement marred the selection of the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials. For that event, the men’s and women’s long distance running committees recommended that the Trials return to Houston, which had staged a successful Trials in 2012. Siegel overrode that decision and decided the Trials should be in Los Angeles, a larger media market. 

That race in Los Angeles went off in warm conditions. February temperatures reached into the mid-70s, and several athletes struggled in the heat, with many claiming inadequate fluids on the course. For the men, Galen Rupp, Meb Keflezighi, and Jared Ward made the team. On the women’s side, Amy Cragg and Des Linden finished first and second, and Shalane Flanagan collapsed at the finish line in third place. 

USATF is facing scrutiny about other administrative matters. In November, when the nonprofit organization’s most recent tax forms were made public, it showed Siegel had a total compensation package of $3.8 million in 2021. The chief operating officer, Renee Washington, made more than $1.6 million. Together, those two salaries represented more than 16 percent of the organization’s revenues. 

Earlier this month, heptathlete Taliyah Brooks filed a lawsuit against USATF for failing to reschedule the heptathlon during extreme heat at the 2021 Olympic Track and Field Trials.

 

(12/18/2022) Views: 707 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Kenyan Edna Kiplagat eyes second title in Boston

Former champion Edna Kiplagat is the only elite Kenyan female athlete invited for the Boston Marathon due for April 17, next year.

Kiplagat returns to the Boston Marathon course for the sixth time, having won in 2017 in two hours, 21 minutes and 52 second besides finishing second twice in 2019 in 2:24:13 and 2021 in 2:25:09.

However, the organisers of the Boston Marathon have now scaled Kiplagat to winner’s position this year after the initial winner Diana Kipyokei failed a doping test in October this year.

Kiplagat, 43, settled ninth in 2018 (2:47:14) behind winner, home athlete Desiree Linden and fourth in 2:21:52 this year where Olympic marathon champion, Peres Jepchirchir, reigned supreme 2:21:02.

Kiplagat, the 2011 and 2013 world champion, will face the reigning world marathon champion Gotytom Gebreslase from Ethiopia, Linden, who is eying to recapture the crown, and 2016 champion Atsede Baysa of Ethiopia.

Injured Jepchirchir will be missing in action.

Kiplagat set a new Masters Division record on her way to finishing fourth at the 2022 Boston Marathon in 2:21:40, and shows no signs of stopping.

While this will be Gotytom Gebreslase’s first Boston Marathon, it is far from her first time racing in Boston.

The Ethiopian world champion has finished runner-up at the Boston Half Marathon twice and has placed in the top-five three times at the Boston 5km.

Beyond winning a world title in 2022, Gebreslase placed third at both the Berlin Marathon and New York City Marathons this year.

“I am very happy to compete in the Boston Marathon 2023, as Boston is one of the most famous races in the world,” Gebreslase told the Boston Marathon website.

Gebreslasem said it has long been her dream to win the race.

" I raced many times in Boston in indoor races and then on the roads. So, I am happy to bring my career full circle as the World Champion with a chance to add the Boston Marathon title,” said Gebreslase.

(12/03/2022) Views: 702 ⚡AMP
by Ayumba Ayodi

Kipchoge, Gebreslase and Chebet confirmed for Boston Marathon

World record-holder and double Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge and world champion Gotytom Gebreslase will make their Boston Marathon debuts on 17 April 2023, joining six former winners of the World Athletics Elite Platinum Label road race.

Defending champion Evans Chebet, 2021 winner Benson Kipruto, and two-time victor Lelisa Desisa will be part of a historically deep men’s elite race. Among the returning champions in the women’s field are Edna Kiplagat, Atsede Baysa and Desiree Linden.

As the fastest marathon runner in history, Kipchoge will take on the challenging Boston Marathon course with hopes of earning his 11th win in an Abbott World Marathon Majors event. Kipchoge’s last marathon resulted in a world record of 2:01:09 at the Berlin Marathon.

“I am happy to announce in April I will compete in the Boston Marathon, a new chapter in my Abbott World Marathon Majors journey,” said Kipchoge. “Good luck to all the runners running Boston in 2023.”

Chebet stormed to a 2:06:51 win at the Boston Marathon earlier this year then ran to victory at the New York City Marathon in November. In 2022, Chebet became just the sixth man in history to win the Boston and New York City Marathons in the same year.

“To be a champion in Boston is something very special and for me it has even more meaning because it took me quite some time during my career to be competitive enough to finally win the oldest marathon in the world,” said Chebet. “I can’t wait to be back and to enjoy the great atmosphere of such a unique and historical race!”

Kipruto, a training partner of Chebet, also returns. Almost exactly one year after winning the 2021 Boston Marathon, he won the Chicago Marathon in a PB of 2:04:24.

Desisa enters Boston with vital experience, having placed in the top two four times at the Boston Marathon (wins in 2013 and 2015 and second-place finishes in 2016 and 2019). April marks the 10-year anniversary of his first victory, one in which he donated his champion’s medal back to the City of Boston in recognition of the tragedy of 15 April 2013.

While this will be Gebreslase’s first Boston Marathon, it is far from her first time racing in Boston. The Ethiopian world champion has finished runner-up at the Boston Half Marathon twice and has placed in the top five three times at the Boston 5K. Along with winning the world title, Gebreslase placed third at both the Berlin Marathon and New York City Marathons this year.

“I am very happy to compete in the Boston Marathon 2023, as Boston is one of the most famous races in the world,” said Gebreslase. “It has long been a dream of mine to win the race. When I was a young track athlete, I raced many times in Boston in indoor races and then on the roads, so I am very excited and happy to bring my career full circle and come back to Boston now as the world champion.”

Kiplagat, a two-time world champion, is still highly competitive at the age of 43. She finished fourth at this year’s Boston Marathon in 2:21:40 – 12 seconds faster than her winning time in Boston in 2017.

Baysa, the 2016 Boston Marathon winner, also returns. Also a past winner in Chicago and Paris, Baysa finished eighth at the 2021 Boston Marathon. Linden, the winner in 2018, will be racing in her 10th Boston Marathon.

The complete elite field – including additional Boston Marathon champions, Abbott World Marathon Majors winners and global medallists – will be announced in the coming months.

(12/01/2022) Views: 690 ⚡AMP
by World Athletics

Who Wore Which Shoes at the New York City Marathon?

The running shoe hype train was high in New York City with a few fast yet-to-be-released shoes in the men’s and women’s elite fields.

For a few miles early in the New York City Marathon, Desi Linden surged into the lead of the women’s elite field. The two-time Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion didn’t think she’d run away and win the race that way, but she was just trying to keep the pace honest.

However, hiding in plain sight on her feet as she was off the front of the pack was a yet-to-be-released pair of orange, white and black Brooks prototype racing shoes. A day later, no one is willing to give up any details of the shoe, except that, like all of the other top-tier racing shoes in both the men’s and women’s elite fields, it features a carbon plate embedded in a hyper-responsive foam midsole. And although it’s all in accordance with World Athletics regulations, it won’t be released in Spring 2024 … so we’ll all have to wait a bit to see what that shoe is all about.

Linden’s shoes weren’t the only speedy outliers among the top 25 men’s and women’s finishers. While Nike, Adidas and ASICS shoes were the most prevalent brands among elite runners, there were several shoes that aren’t yet available to the public.

For example, the first runner to cross the finish line of this year’s New York City Marathon, women’s winner Sharon Lokedi, was wearing a pair of Under Armour Velociti Elite shoes. That’s notable for several reasons—because it was Lokedi’s first marathon, because the shoe won’t become available until early 2023 and because it’s the first podium finish at a major international marathon for a runner wearing Under Armour shoes.

There were also three pairs of yet-to-be-released Hoka Rocket X 2 shoes on the feet of three Hoka NAZ Elite runners — two of whom set new personal best times, Aliphine Tuliamuk (7th, 2:26:18) Matthew Baxter (12th, 2:17:15). Those fluorescent yellow shoes with orange, white and blue accents and blue laces were on the feet of Hoka pros at the Boston Marathon in April and Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October, but they won’t be released to the public until late February or early March.

Meanwhile, the winner of the men’s race, Evans Chebet, was wearing a pair of Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3, a shoe worn by four other runners in the top 25 of the men’s race and six among the women’s top 25, making it the second most prevalent model among the elites. Oddly, that was the same shoe worn by Brazil’s Daniel do Nascimento, who went out at record-setting sub-2:03 pace on his own, only to crumple to the ground at mile 21 after succumbing to fatigue and cramping.

The most common shoe among the top finishers was the Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2, which was on the feet of 11 of the 50 runners among the women’s and men’s top 25 finishers. There were eight runners wearing either the first or second version of the ASICS MetaSpeed Sky.

Six runners wore Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit shoes, three wore Nike Air Zoom Alphalfy NEXT% 2. There were two pairs of On Cloudboom Echo 3 in the field, including those worn by Hellen Obiri who finished sixth while running a 2:25:49 in her marathon debut, while three runners wore Puma Fast R Nitro Elite.

And what about actor Ashton Kutcher? He wore a pair of purple Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% Flyknit shoes and finished in a very respectable 3:54:01.

Matt James, the former lead of the Bachelor, finished in 3:46:45 with Shalane Flanagan as his guide wearing a pair of New Balance FuelCell Comp Trainer shoes. Flanagan wore Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% Flyknit shoes, as did Meghan Duggan, an Olympic gold medalist hockey player who ran a solid 3:52:03. Lauren Ridloff, actress from “The Walking Dead,” ran in a pair of Brooks Glycerin 20 and finished in 4:05:48, while Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton finished in 4:20:34 wearing a pair of Brooks Ghost 14 and Tommy Rivers Puzey (aka “Tommy Rivs,” a former elite runner who survived a deadly bout of cancer in 2020, wore a pair of Craft CTM Ultra Carbon Race Rebel and finished in 6:13:54.

Here’s a rundown of what was on the feet of the top 25 women’s and men’s finishers in the Big Apple.

1. Sharon Lokedi (Kenya) 2:23:23 — Under Armour Velociti Elite

2. Lonah Salpeter (Israel) 2:23:30 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

3. Gotytom Gebreslase (Ethiopia) 2:23:39 – Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

4. Edna Kiplagat (Kenya) 2:24:16 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

5. Viola Cheptoo (Kenya) 2:25:34 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

6. Hellen Obiri (Kenya) 2:25:49 — On Cloudboom Echo 3

7. Aliphine Tuliamuk (USA) 2:26:18 — Hoka Rocket X 2

8. Emma Bates (USA) 2:26:53 — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

9. Jessica Stenson (Australia) 2:27:27 – ASICS MetaSpeed Sky

10. Nell Rojas (USA) 2:28:32 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit

11. Lindsay Flanagan (USA) 2:29:28 – ASICS MetaSpeed Sky

12. Gerda Steyn (South Africa) 2:30:22 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

13. Stephanie Bruce (USA) 2:30:34 — Hoka Rocket X 2

14. Caroline Rotich (Kenya) 2:30:59  — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

15. Keira D’Amato (USA) 2:31:31 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit

16. Des Linden (USA) 2:32:37 — Brooks Prototype

17. Mao Uesugi (Japan) 2:32:56 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

18. Eloise Wellings (Australia) 2:34:50 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

19. Sarah Pagano (USA) 2:35:03 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

20. Grace Kahura (Kenya) 2:35:32 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

21. Annie Frisbie (USA) 2:35:35 — Puma Fast R Nitro Elite

22. Molly Grabill (USA) 2:39:45 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% Flyknit

23. Kayla Lampe (USA) 2:40:42 — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

24. Maegan Krifchin (USA) 2:40:52 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

25. Roberta Groner (USA) 2:43:06 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% 2

1. Evans Chebet (Kenya) 2:08:41 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

2. Shura Kitata (Ethiopia) 2:08:54 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

3. Abdi Nageeye (Netherlands) 2:10:31 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

4. Mohamed El Aaraby (Morocco) 2:11:00 — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

5. Suguru Osako (Japan) 2:11:31 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

6. Tetsuya Yoroizaka (Japan) 2:12:12  — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

7. Albert Korir (Kenya) 2:13:27 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

8. Daniele Meucci (Italy) 2:13:29 — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

9. Scott Fauble (USA) 2:13:35 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% 2

10. Reed Fischer (USA) 2:15:23 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

11. Jared Ward (USA) 2:17:09 — Saucony Endorphin Pro 3

12. Matthew Baxter (New Zealand) 2:17:15 — Hoka Rocket X 2

13. Leonard Korir (USA) 2:17:29 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

14. Matthew Llano (USA) 2:20:04 — Under Armour Velociti Elite

15. Olivier Irabaruta (Burundi)  2:20:14 — On Cloudboom Echo 3

16. Hendrik Pfeiffer (Germany) 2:22:31 — Puma Fast R Nitro Elite

17. Jonas Hampton (USA) 2:22:58 — Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

18. Alberto Mena (USA) 2:23:10 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

19. Jacob Shiohira (USA) 2:23:33 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit

20. Edward Mulder (USA) 2:23:42 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit

21. Jordan Daniel (USA) 2:24:27 — Nike ZoomX Vaporfly Next% 2

22. Nathan Martin (USA) 2:25:27 — ASICS MetaSpeed Sky+

23. Jeff Thies (USA) 2:25:45 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT% 2

24. Shadrack Kipchirchir (USA) 2:28:15 — Puma Fast R Nitro Elite

25. Abi Joseph (USA) 2:29:16 — Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Flyknit

(11/27/2022) Views: 808 ⚡AMP
by Outside

Sharon Lokedi's New York City Marathon won a "major" victory for Under Armour

One thing Sharon Lokedi of Kenya and her sponsor, Under Armour, have in common is they both came into the 2022 New York City Marathon as underdogs. Lokedi, a standout collegiate athlete in the NCAA at the University of Kansas, was making her marathon debut in NYC, but since turning pro in 2019, she did not have a breakthrough performance on her resume. And every major marathon since Des Linden at the Boston Marathon with Brooks in 2018 has been won by an athlete wearing either Nike, Adidas or Asics.On Sunday, the two made history together. Lokedi became only the second woman to win NYC in her marathon debut, following in the footsteps of her Kenyan compatriot Tegla Loroupe, who won in 1994. Lokedi was the first athlete to win an Abbott World Marathon Major wearing a pair of Under Armour shoes.The shoes she wore were a World Athletics-approved prototype of the new iterations of the Flow Velociti Elite—a shoe designed for 10K and half marathon distances to help you move forward with speed and efficiency.Designed as a contender to rival the top competitors in the market, the Flow Velociti Elite is for runners who need a balance of flexibility and cushioning in their racing shoes. Every stride with the Velociti Elite is amplified by a full-length carbon-fibre plate sandwiched in a soft midsole foam, which compresses and springs back for added lift and energy return, delivering an explosive lift-off.

The UA Flow Velociti Elite comes in at 212 grams and has an 8 mm offset.When Lokedi signed with Under Armour after winning the 10,000m at the 2019 NCAA Championships, they promised her top-of-the-line footwear development and innovation, to set her up for success.

“It’s an honour to be the first Under Armour athlete to win a major marathon,” said Lokedi. “I am so grateful to be a part of a brand that builds and supports their athletes to be the best they can be.”

She currently trains in Flagstaff, Ariz., under the direction of coach Stephen Haas and Pat Casey with the UA Misson Run Dark Sky Distance Project.In 2020, when the group was founded, Haas and Casey worked with Under Armour to build a team of athletes who could train with Lokedi. Although she has resided in the U.S. since 2014, she holds Kenyan citizenship and competed at Kenyan Olympic Trials in 2021 (finishing seventh in the 10,000m).

The new variation of the UA Flow Velociti Elite will hit the Canadian market with limited availability on UA.com in the spring of 2023.

(11/12/2022) Views: 740 ⚡AMP
by Running Magazine

Podcasts for the long run: time will fly by while you listen to one of our faves

Whether you are looking for something entertaining to pass the time on your weekly long runs, or want some running and wellness-related content to turn on while you’re driving or cooking, we’ve got the line-up for you.

Legacy of Speed

Hosted by Malcolm Gladwell (also of the Revisionist History podcast), this podcast tells the story behind the 1968 Olympic Games, when two Black sprinters raised their fists in protest, shaking the world. More than 50 years later, the ripple effects of their activism are still felt. Legacy of Speed tells the story of a small university track team who unexpectedly took the world’s stage, the runners who took a stand, and the coaches who helped make them both fast enough and courageous enough to rise up. Once you start, you won’t be able to stop listening.

The Shakeout Podcast

Canadian Running‘s own podcast is hosted and produced by the multi-talented Olympian Kate Van Buskirk and celebrates running and its transformative power. Van Buskirk connects with sport leaders, coaches, advocates and visionary athletes to dig deep on important topics. Van Buskirk is joined by fellow Olympian and CR staff writer Maddy Kelly for a weekly recap of events in the running world called The Rundown. Whether you’re a regular runner or simply interested in intelligent and meaningful conversations within sport, The Shakeout is a must-listen.

The Singletrack Podcast

Whether you run in the woods on the daily, or you’re just learning what singletrack is, you’ll love Finn Melanson‘s exploration of the world of trail and ultrarunning. Melanson talks to all the big names in the sport to find out what makes them tick, and does an excellent job of explaining, previewing and recapping trail and ultra and trail races across the world. From obsessive ultratrail fan to newbie, The Singletrack Podcast is the place to go.

The Rich Roll Podcast

Endurance athlete and plant-based nutrition advocate Rich Roll also hosts one of the world’s most popular wellness podcasts. On each episode, Rich dives deep into diverse topics, discussing everything from track and field to the science of longevity; from mental strength to enlightenment. “Rich delves deep into all things wellness with some of the brightest and most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, fitness, nutrition, art, entertainment, entrepreneurship & spirituality,” touts the podcast website, and it’s true: the vast range of past guests include Boston Marathon champ Des Linden, boxer Laila Ali, ultrarunner Harvey Lewis and neuroscientist Andrew Huberman.

Running for Real with Tina Muir

Tina Muir is a former pro-marathoner from the UK, now US-based. Her show deals with the darker, less glamorous side of professional sport. Muir is not afraid to bring up tough topics and is a staunch advocate for mental health and women in sport, and her belief that “running has the power to change the world” is evident in every conversation. Muir endeavors to make this clear in her podcast, which opens up with a quote that describes this perfectly: “The podcast for runners who know that for every runner’s high, there are just as many lows.”

Radiolab

While not running-focused, Radiolab has some episodes about running that are fascinating–as is every single other podcast in their history. Hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser, Radiolab digs into deep questions and uses investigative journalism to get the answers. On any episode, you may find yourself immersed in science, legal history and incredible stories about humans around the world.

Women Run Canada

This podcast, hosted by Kirsten Parker, celebrates Canadian women runners from all walks of life. It tackles a wide variety of topics–and while listening, you’ll feel even more connected to the Canadian running community. Perfect when you’re needing some motivation to get moving, you’ll learn, laugh and be inspired by this pod.

(10/30/2022) Views: 548 ⚡AMP
by Running Magazine

TCS New York City Marathon App to Debut Livestreaming of All Pro Races in Their Entirety

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and New York Road Runners (NYRR) launched the official 2022 TCS New York City Marathon App with a groundbreaking Second Screen feature that will transform the marathon experience for runners and fans alike. For the first time in the history of major marathons, the professional men’s and women’s wheelchair and open division races will be livestreamed on the app in their entirety, empowering fans to swipe between feeds and watch the race of their choice.

The Professional Runner Feed, available free on the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon app, will enhance the broadcast coverage through a Second Screen that features uninterrupted coverage of the leaders in all four races. It will complement the race broadcast available domestically on WABC/ESPN and internationally in 182 countries and territories so that spectators from around the world can watch every move as the fastest marathoners in the world battle for victory on the streets of New York City. The 51st running of the TCS New York City Marathon will take place on November 6.

“I’m excited to race the TCS New York City Marathon again as I go for my sixth title, and it’s so incredible that everyone around the world can follow along the professional wheelchair races in full in the TCS Mobile App,” said Tatyana McFadden, a five-time TCS New York City Marathon champion and 20-time Paralympic medalist. “It’s so important to have platforms such as this that reach the masses to showcase our sport and bring parity to the wheelchair division.”

The TCS New York City Marathon has historically broken ground and set the pace for equal opportunities for both women and wheelchair athletes. This year, every step taken by the leaders can be seen on the app – from the big lead pack often seen in Brooklyn to the surges on 1st Avenue that separate the competitors. Fans can watch every race-defining move throughout the marathon.

“Livestreaming the pro races on the TCS New York City Marathon app is a win for fans and a win for athletes,” said Des Linden, a two-time Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion. “Allowing the long form stories to develop over the course of 26.2 miles will give fans the chance to learn about the contenders and appreciate the nuances of racing that they’ve never seen before.”

The 2022 TCS New York City Marathon App also sets a new standard for runner tracking. The app allows spectators to track the elapsed time and pace of an unlimited number of runners. The first of its kind Course Camera feature lets fans watch a live feed of their favorite runners at five key points along the course – at the start, mile 8 in Brooklyn, mile 17 in the Upper East Side, mile 20 in the Bronx, and at the finish. This new feature also gives runners the comfort that their family and friends can watch them at key points on the course and cheer for them from anywhere in the world.

“Fans of an iconic global event like the TCS New York City Marathon deserve the most technologically advanced race app,” said Suresh Muthuswami, Chairman of North America, TCS. “We are proud to raise the bar this year by bringing all of the exciting action from the streets of New York City to the world in an inclusive fan experience.”

"Every year, it is exciting to see the TCS New York City Marathon partnership come to life through the mobile app, and this year’s enhancements will elevate the experience to a whole new level for both spectators and viewers,” said Christine Burke, NYRR Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Runner Products. “Whether it be fans following the every stride of their favorite professional athletes or checking out the Course Camera feed to find their family and friends, the new features in the app are guaranteed to bring in a whole new audience.”

TCS is the first ever premier partner of NYRR, a relationship that began in 2012. From the beginning, TCS and NYRR committed to enhancing the marathon experience for runners, spectators, and fans around the world through technology. The award-winning TCS New York City Marathon app is typically downloaded a half-million times every year.

Other Key Features

Share Tracking: This feature on the Runner Details page allows users to share a link that initiates an automatic app download with a specific runner already selected to be tracked during the race.

Optimized Spectator Guides: The app’s spectator guide helps fans create an itinerary to navigate New York City, so they’re able to see runners on the course. The shareable guide provides a runner’s estimated times of arrival, along with transportation directions and recommended viewing locations along the course.

Cheer Cards: Allows fans to support runners using the app to share messages on social media.

Live Pro Athlete Leader Board and Bios: Closely track the race day leaders in real time, as well as have access to bios, records, and images of professional athletes running the race.

Team Inspire Profiles: For the first time, the app will include stories of Team Inspire, a group of runners with some of the most inspiring stories in this year’s mass runner field.

The mobile app for the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon is available now for iPhone and Android devices on the App Store and Google Play, respectively.

(10/27/2022) Views: 714 ⚡AMP
by Running USA

5 Reasons Why Athletes Can Embrace Aging

My grandfather lived until he was 94. By the time he died in 2009, he was the sole survivor of 13 siblings. His secret? For as long as I can remember he used to say, with a gusto I have yet to match, "You just have to keep moving!" And with every passing birthday he'd also remind me: "Getting older is better than the alternative."

Those two pearls of wisdom have continued to serve me well. But it has also occurred to me that since I became a masters runner (defined as 40 and older), I've focused primarily on the negative aspects of aging-albeit, mostly factors that my grandfather never had to experience. Women face a lot of challenges in mid-life that make it hard to maintain a cheery disposition, even as that simple advice to "keep moving!" holds true.

The decline of estrogen levels has an effect on just about everything, including mood, sleep, body composition, bone density, muscle mass, and more. It's a lot to navigate-especially for those of us who've been athletes for most of our lives. We have to adjust expectations and relearn how to properly train our bodies that have new needs and capabilities.

It's natural to fixate on what we're potentially losing as the years go by. But what if we explored the ways that aging serves us, instead? I'm not trying to pollyanna our way out of perimenopause, but taking a little time to reflect on the happier sides of getting older might entice some of us to relish this phase instead of fear it.

So I called Selene Yeager, host of the podcast Hit Play Not Pause and content manager for Feisty Menopause, a site that covers training, nutrition, and lifestyle advice to help women maximize performance during menopause and beyond. She shared some expertise and insight on how athletes can find hope and enjoyment during the second half of their active lives. Out of that conversation and many others over the years with runners who have experienced longevity in the sport, I came up with five reasons to embrace masters running.Perspective. 

It is impossible to acknowledge or appreciate the bigger picture when you're younger. Every botched workout, every missed PR, every off-pace long run seems like a big deal. But then life expands in wild ways. Whether it's a spouse or children or career or aging parents, everybody seemingly needs something from you for quite a while. 

The upside? Those important people who need you can also put performance into perspective. Before running the Berlin Marathon in September, Keira D'Amato, 37, who was trying to improve her American record during the race (2:19:12, which has since been broken by Emily Sisson at the Chicago Marathon in 2:18:29), remarked that while her goals are a priority, her results actually don't matter much in the grand scheme.

"At the end of the day, no matter what happens, I'm still going to come home to two kids who will ask me what's for dinner," D'Amato said during a pre-race interview.

Similarly, Yeager remembers when her daughter was younger, she felt a pivot in her outlook, too. "You're not sitting there ruminating about yourself anymore-it's a similar sort of transition phase in a woman's life that can bring that better head space."

The even better news is that eventually a lot of those people become less dependent as we enter midlife, leaving new-found time to focus more on your own endeavors.

"The shedding of those ovarian hormones that have you nurturing everybody but yourself gives you the brain space to look at what you need and want," Yeager says. "And that is a great thing. Not that nurturing is bad, but it's time for you."Liberation. 

The older we get, the less we care. In a good way. In the best ways, really. As Yeager puts it, "You can say it however you want, but you get to this point where you don't actually give a f*ck and it's very liberating and empowering."

You don't care what people think when you try something new, like mountain racing. You don't care what your time is and realize that nobody else does either (spoiler alert: nobody ever did care what your personal bests or weekly mileage were). You start to realize that the performances and goals can be broader and more creative than ever before-your effort can go toward something besides qualifying for the Boston Marathon, for example.

Look no further than somebody like Deena Kastor, who won the Olympic marathon bronze medal in 2004. Now 49, she still trains at a high level, but has continually redefined what success means to her, whether it's going after age-group records or racing all the World Marathon Major events, a goal she just completed when she finished the Berlin Marathon a few weeks ago, in 2:45:12.

"There's lots of empowerment that comes with midlife, especially around 50," Yeager says. "It takes some time and it might take hormonal changes-I don't know; they're still doing their research-to really accept and embrace that you are the only one thinking about you as much as you're thinking about you."Community. 

Not long ago I spoke with Kathryn Martin, who at 70 years old had just taken a five-year break from competing on the masters track scene. She has two dozen age-group American records and a dozen world records, but was feeling a little burned out from the high-intensity pursuits. During that break, she didn't stop running, but she did cease serious training. What brought her back? Aside from a renewed desire to tackle more records, she missed all the friends she made on the circuit.

"What I really missed was the camaraderie. Masters runners are so unique," Martin told me. "You can be warriors on the track, but prior to and immediately afterward, everybody's hugging. We're just so happy to see each other and be in each other's company."

While you don't have to grow older to appreciate the running community, Martin is right. The masters category hits a little different. Yeager sees it, too-and hears about it from plenty of women she interviews.

"Even if you're really competitive still, there's a genuine appreciation for your peers," Yeager says. "We've seen a lot of shit in our lives at this point and that creates a lot of camaraderie. You're also just more secure in your skin and not having all your self-worth wrapped up in beating another person."Technology and research. 

Sara Hall, 39, is the poster woman for longevity. She started having the best races of her career in her mid-30s, now one of the fastest U.S. women at the marathon (2:20:32). Many factors have worked in Hall's favor, but one thing she's continually given credit to is the advancement in shoe technology-not just the way in which they've elevated everybody's performances, but also how they've reduced the pounding on her legs and allowed quicker recovery between big efforts.

The generation entering its 50s now is the first to grow up in a post-Title IX world, with increased access to sports for their entire lives. As Yeager says, we aren't in the "Golden Girls" era anymore. Women remain competitive and active for far longer than they ever have not only thanks to that critical piece of policy, but also because of the technology (think: gear, nutrition, recovery tools, etc.) that keeps us healthier, longer. The research on all phases of the female athlete lifecycle still has plenty of catching up to do, but as it advances and we know better how to care for our maturing bodies, the possibilities will only increase.

"Everything we thought we knew about women after they had babies or when they go through the menopause transition-really about women at any stage-is being rewritten and discovered," Yeager says. "It's a huge thing, when performance and fitness is exponentially different because we've started and built it all from the time we were adolescents, many not stopping during pregnancy, either. Are you kidding? We're just different human beings than the women back in the Golden Girl time."Reinvention. 

Ever want to try different distances? Different terrain? Are you triathlon curious? Have you heeded the often repeated advice to start lifting weights (seriously, you need to lift weights)? After all is said and done, if you're still not convinced that growing older as a runner can become an equally enjoyable experience, then reinvent yourself. Try something new and see the comparisons to your former self disappear.

Yeager, for example, didn't start CrossFit until she was 48 years old, when "it was time to start 'lifting heavy sh*t' as they say.'" Desiree Linden, 39, winner of the 2018 Boston Marathon, has said she's looking forward to exploring trails and ultra-distance races after she retires from competitive road racing. 

"If you are open to expanding your horizons, it makes all the difference in the world," Yeager says. "You have nowhere to go but up. You're learning new things and experiencing something for the joy of it again. That's enormously positive."

It looks like my grandfather had a point. All you have to do is keep moving

(10/23/2022) Views: 614 ⚡AMP
by Trail Runner Magazine

New York City Marathon: Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir out, Keira D’Amato in

Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir withdrew from defending her New York City Marathon title on Nov. 6, citing an unspecified injury.

Keira D’Amato, the second-fastest American female marathoner in history, was also added to the field in Friday’s announcement.

Jepchirchir, 29, is the only person to win the Olympic, Boston and New York City Marathons in a career, doing so in a nine-month span in 2021 and 2022. She won New York City last November in 2:22:39, prevailing by five seconds over countrywoman Viola Cheptoo.

D’Amato, a 37-year-old mother of two, broke a 16-year-old American record in the women’s marathon on Jan. 16 by clocking 2:19:12 in Houston. Emily Sisson took the record last Sunday in Chicago in 2:18:29.

D’Amato, who went nearly a decade between competitive races after a middle-distance stint at American University, will make her New York City Marathon debut six weeks after running the Berlin Marathon in 2:21:48.

Elkanah Kibet also withdrew from the Nov. 6 race, a year after he was the top finisher among American male runners in fourth place. Kibet, a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, received orders to report overseas, according to the New York Road Runners.

Other race headliners include: 2018 Boston Marathon winner Des Linden and world champions Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia and Edna Kiplagat of Kenya for the women. And two-time Olympic medalist Galen Rupp, defending champion Albert Korir of Kenya, reigning Boston Marathon champion Evans Chebet, Olympic silver medalist Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands and 2020 London Marathon winner Shura Kitata for the men.

(10/14/2022) Views: 718 ⚡AMP
by Olympic Talk

Tips for Running a Marathon and Half-Marathon from World Record holder Des Linden

Running a marathon is not easy. First, you must train your body and your training. It takes months to prepare your body physically, mentally, and nutritionally. And you must train your training with planning, preparation, and consistency. If you can follow these principles, you will be successful. You don’t want to be undertrained or underprepared; that is how strains, pains, and injuries happen.

But don’t take it from me. Des Linden is the expert. Marathoner, Des Linden, was an American woman to break the 33-year dry spell for an American to win the Boston Marathon, finishing it in 2:39:55. Also, last year, she was the first woman to run a 50K under three hours in 2:59:54.

Here are Des Linden’s insider tips to help you improve your marathon. Of course, you don’t have to follow her process entirely, but you can incorporate some or all the things she does that create success for her.

Pace Your Training

When it comes to running and training for a marathon, there is no quick way. You train, rest, recover, and then your body adapts. Forcing in extra miles is overtraining and not going to make up for missed training days. The body does not work like that. Des says you must be consistent with your training. Training too hard or too much can be disastrous, especially in the middle of your training phase. Consistency is the key. So, don’t up the mileage for your next run if you miss a day.

Be Patient with Running

Distance running is different from running just a few miles or sprinting. First, des says you must love running and the training that comes with it. If you don’t love it, you will force your body to do it. That is bad for you mentally. Physically, the body needs consistent training and time to adapt and improve. She also says there are no quick ways to get better, “You just have to show up.”

You Need Calories

Des says runners are famous for not eating enough to fuel their run. You must eat the right foods for energy. She says good nutrition will keep you strong and healthy and prevent setbacks. It is terrible for your body when you are out on a run, and your body struggles with energy. Not enough calories mean the training will force your body. But she also stresses eating poor nutritional food is better than an empty tank.

Nevertheless, try to eat natural, wholesome foods like vegetables, nuts, and fruits. Des says simplicity works best. Just make sure you get fueled up.

Learn How to Re-Fuel

Post nutrition for your run is essential and the basis of how your energy will replenish. Des says eating 15 to 20 minutes after your workout is critical. Eating a meal right after training is hard, so you must prepare. The most important thing to consume is a protein shake to start repairing muscles immediately. Along with protein, eat carbohydrates that absorb quickly to boost your energy levels. So, drinking a protein shake and eating carbs like bananas are simple and easy ways to refuel and recover.

Des says her stomach is still not ready to digest a full meal after her run. So, she says she will increase her protein when her stomach has recovered, which can take longer than an hour. Then, she plans her bigger sit-down meal of about 15 to 25 grams of protein. But, to refuel properly, you must understand digestion.

Experiment with Your Nutrition

There are so many different foods to eat and supplements to use. But not all foods are created equal and have the same effect for each person. Des says you must test different foods before running and know which ones work best for you. Experimenting and trial and error are your best ways. She says she has tested many foods to develop her nutritional plan over the years. For example, she says she can eat anything during easy runs. But before long training runs or races, she chooses simple foods to avoid the risk of longer digestion, which has the possibility of upsetting her stomach. An upset stomach equals slower runs.

The Key to Speed is Relaxation

Des says you must find the balance between pushing and forcing yourself. If you push yourself, you can stay more relaxed. And, if your force yourself, you create tension that will work against you running faster and longer. Also, the more relaxed you are, the more energy you conserve. If you are tense, it will eat up your energy. And you need that energy when mile 20 arrives to pick up the speed a bit.

For Aspiring Runners

Des says just be patient because running a marathon is a process. On day one, you will think and feel how hard it was to run. And that difficulty will continue for ten days. She mentions that you will want to and feel like quitting, but you must get over that hump. Over the hump is when your routine begins. Des states that getting in shape is hard, but it is awesome once you are in shape. Don’t throw yourself into it; ease into it so you will stick with it. Too much too hard, and you will quit.

Once Des crosses the finish line, her recovery begins. After every marathon, she does not train for two weeks to recover. After that, however, she will get into the pool to do passive recovery. Des says taking two weeks off is essential to heal her body and get excited to train for the next race.

“Sometimes you chase results, and you lose sight of the bigger picture. You need to step back and get back to enjoying the process of running versus chasing down a win.” – Des Linden

(09/03/2022) Views: 766 ⚡AMP
by Jason Kelly

World Championships Medalists Gotytom Gebreslase, Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, and Hellen Obiri to Join Women’s Field at 2022 TCS New York

Sara Hall, Emma Bates, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Des Linden, Nell Rojas, and Stephanie Bruce to anchor star-studded contingent of American women.

World Championships medalists Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia, Lonah Chemtai Salpeter of Israel, and Hellen Obiri of Kenya will join previously announced New York City and Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir in the women’s professional athlete division at this year’s TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday November 6. All three will make their TCS New York City Marathon debuts, with Obiri making her 26.2-mile debut across any course, and will line up against a star-studded contingent of American women that includes Sara Hall, Emma Bates, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Des Linden, Nell Rojas, and Stephanie Bruce. The 2022 TCS New York City Marathon women’s professional athlete field is presented by Mastercard®.

Women’s Open Division

Fresh off her victory at the world championships marathon, where she finished the course in a championship-record time of 2:18:11, Gebreslase will make New York City her next stop. She will look to add a five-borough title to her resume, having previously won the 2021 Berlin Marathon and finished third at the 2022 Tokyo Marathon.

“Winning the World Championships was like a dream, and I am honored to run my next marathon in New York City,” Gebreslase said. “It’s home to the biggest marathon in the world, and many of the top athletes have run there. I understand it’s a challenging course, and I’m looking forward to seeing further success there.”

Two-time Olympian Salpeter, a Kenyan-born Israeli who won the bronze medal at the world championships marathon and was the 2020 Tokyo Marathon winner, will challenge Gebreslase once again. Obiri, a two-time Olympic medalist and seven-time individual world championships medalist, will make her highly anticipated marathon debut shortly after winning a world championships silver over 10,000 meters.

“I’m very excited to make my marathon debut at the TCS New York City Marathon,” Obiri said. “I have watched the race many times on TV and have seen my Kenyan colleagues compete there. I know New York is a tough course, but I hope my experience on track, road, and cross-country will help me navigate the ups and downs. I also plan to get advice and tips from coach Dathan Ritzenhein, who competed in the race several times in the past.”

In addition to Jepchirchir, the group will be racing against Ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi, who will look to become the first athlete to win the United Airlines NYC Half, Mastercard New York Mini 10K, and TCS New York City Marathon in one year. Three other Kenyans will also be strong contenders for podium places, including the 2010 New York City, 2014 London and 2017 Boston Marathon champion Edna Kiplagat, last year’s runner-up Viola Cheptoo, and newcomer Sharon Lokedi.

The American effort will be led by 10-time national champion Hall, who was the top world championships marathon finisher from the U.S. last month in Oregon, where she placed fifth. She is also the former half marathon national record holder, the runner-up from the 2020 London Marathon, and a two-time winner of the Mastercard New York Mini 10K. She will be joined at the Staten Island start line by Bates, who clocked a personal best to finish seventh at the world championships and was the runner-up at last year’s Chicago Marathon.

“From winning the Millrose mile to back-to-back Mini 10K wins, most of my favorite career moments have happened in NYC,” Hall said. “I’m all-in to add to that by having my best marathon yet at the TCS New York City Marathon. I can’t wait to be back racing my heart out in the five boroughs of my favorite city.”

Tokyo 2020 Olympian Aliphine Tuliamuk, and two-time Olympian and 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden, will also return to New York, as will national champion Stephanie Bruce, who will race the five boroughs for the final time before retiring. The deep U.S. women’s group will additionally include Nell Rojas, the top American finisher from the last two Boston Marathons, Lindsay Flanagan, the top American finisher from the 2022 United Airlines NYC Half, Annie Frisbie, last year’s seventh-place finisher, and her training partner Dakotah Lindwurm, who won Grandma’s Marathon in June. Emily Durgin, the sixth-fastest U.S. half marathoner of all-time, will make her marathon debut.

(08/11/2022) Views: 960 ⚡AMP
by Running USA

How to celebrate global running day

Global Running Day is today, June 1. And though running might be something you do several days a week, or even every day,  this particular day is made for celebrating the sport we all love. It’s a great time to focus on what running does for your body, for your mind, for the community that it brings together, for the friendships made on the run. After so long spent apart, it’s time to come together and run again.

Here are a few ideas on how to give back and make the most of your miles on this special day.

Run for Yourself

We’re totally on board with lacing up purely for the mental and physical benefits you get in return. Taking care of yourself is more than enough cause for celebration. And if you’re looking for a race medal, some kudos, or even some free swag to go with your movement, these brands have you covered.

Coros Global Running Day Challenge

Endurance tech brand Coros enlisted the likes of pro marathoners Molly Seidel and Des Linden to create a special GRD 5K workout. Those who participate will be entered to win a $50 gift card to Coros. Note: You must have the Coros app to participate.

Virtual NYRR Global Running Day 5K

Run this virtual race, hosted by New York Road Runners, now through Sunday June 5. Runners are also invited to join their virtual racer Facebook group for daily inspiration and community building.

“It’s Your Run” with Brooks

Running shoe and apparel brand Brooks is encouraging everyone to get out and run no matter the distance or speed. “It doesn’t matter how far they go; it all counts, because It’s Your Run,” the brand told Women’s Running in an email. Post your run with the hashtag #ItsYourRun on Instagram and receive surprise shout-outs and “medals.”

Run for Others

If you’d like to make Global Running Day an intentional way to give to others while still getting in your miles, the following brands have some goodwill on deck for the holiday.

Under Armour All Out Mile

Under Armour is back this year encouraging runners to “go all out on Global Running Day” by attempting to run the fastest mile. Starting tomorrow through Sunday June 5, runners can attempt the mile race as many times as they want using FitRankings and Under Armour’s MapMyRun. The three fastest women and men will receive cash and gear prizes.

Runners can also compete as a team in attempt to nab the most participants. The teams in America, Europe, Asia, and South Asia with the most mile runners will receive $10,000 donated to a charity of their choice.

Run For the Oceans With Adidas

Going on now through Wednesday, June 8, Adidas has pledged to clean up the ocean in exchange for your sweat. For every 10 minutes run, the brand will remove one plastic bottle from the ocean (or the equivalent in weight). Download the Adidas Running app to track your miles.

Dick’s Sporting Goods Global Running Day Challenge

If you’re also in the market for some new gear, Dick’s Sporting Goods has teamed up with Run to Change Lives to donate to SportsMatter, a Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation initiative that aims to raise awareness around the youth sports funding crisis.

How this GRD campaign works: Post your running selfie to the RUN to Change Lives Facebook group on June 1 using the hashtag #GlobalRunningDay. Print out your Dick’s Sporting Goods coupon given upon registration. When you shop at DSG using the coupon, Run to Change Lives will donate $5 to SportsMatter.

Global Running Day With Ventures Endurance

Event company Ventures Endurance is supporting Shoes That Fit, a national organization that helps kids get shoes. On Global Running Day, a $10 registration means $5 will go to Shoes That Fit. In return, runners will receive a $15 voucher toward a Ventures Endurance Race.

(06/01/2022) Views: 1,143 ⚡AMP
by Women´s Running

Boston Marathon Champions & National Record Holders Headline Professional Field for 2022 B.A.A. 10K

The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) has announced a star-studded field for the 2022 B.A.A. 10K, presented by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, to be held on Sunday, June 26. Evans Chebet, the 2022 Boston Marathon men’s open division champion, will return to Boston, while recently crowned American half marathon record holder Emily Sisson will lead the women’s field on the roads of Back Bay. Four-time B.A.A. 5K champion and American 5K record holder Ben True will also make his B.A.A. 10K debut.

The B.A.A. 10K starts and finishes on Charles Street adjacent to Boston Common and Boston Public Garden, and is widely regarded as one of the fastest 10K races in the world. Registration remains open at www.baa.org, while athletes interested in supporting Brigham and Women's Hospital, the B.A.A. 10K’s presenting sponsor and exclusive fundraising partner, are encouraged to visit www.runbwh.org/10k.

“We’re excited to continue to showcase the world’s most accomplished runners at our B.A.A. events,” said Mary Kate Shea, the B.A.A.’s Director of Professional Athletes and Technical Support. “We’re looking forward to cheering on all participants as they race towards the finish.”

The B.A.A. 10K women’s race brings together Boston Marathon champions Des Linden (2018) and Edna Kiplagat (2017), American record holder Sisson, 2017 B.A.A. 10K winner Joan Chelimo Melly, 2022 Boston Marathon top American Nell Rojas, 2016 USA Olympian Marielle Hall, and USA 15K runner-up Emily Durgin.

Sisson, a Providence College graduate and 2021 Olympian, ran 1:07:11 on May 7 to win the USATF Half Marathon Championships in a new national record. She’s also the defending USA 15K champion.

“Breaking the American record in the half marathon was very exciting and I'm now looking forward to switching things up and racing different distances,” said Sisson. “The 10K is a fun and different challenge and I always love racing in Boston.”

Additional international entrants include Biruktayit Degefa of Ethiopia, who has won a quartet of American road races this spring, and Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi, who placed third at the 2022 B.A.A. 5K in April. From the B.A.A. High Performance team are Erika Kemp and Abbey Wheeler; Kemp is a two-time national champion.

In the men’s race, Chebet looks to become only the second Boston Marathon champion to win the B.A.A. 10K, joining the likes of 2011 winner and course record holder Geoffrey Mutai. Chebet stormed to his first Boston Marathon victory in 2:06:51 on April 18.

“After winning the 2022 Boston Marathon, I’m excited to return to the city to run the B.A.A. 10K with a world class field,” said Chebet. “Boston feels like a second home to me now.”

Challenging Chebet from Kenya are David Bett, the reigning 2019 B.A.A. 10K winner; Kennedy Kimutai, the fastest man in the field with a 27:09 lifetime best; Bravin Kiptoo, the 2019 African junior 10,000m champion; and Nicholas Kosimbei, winner of this year’s Cherry Blossom 10 Miler in Washington, D.C. Brothers Jake and Zane Robertson, a dynamic pair from New Zealand who have lived and trained in Kenya, will also race. Recent Iowa State graduate and NCAA champion Wesley Kiptoo will make his Boston road racing debut.

Maine-native Ben True will return to familiar territory, having won the B.A.A. 5K four times, including a national-record setting run of 13:20 in 2017.  Fellow American contenders include Olympians Leonard Korir and Shadrack Kipchirchir, Princeton, Mass.-native Colin Bennie, and a quartet of B.A.A. High Performance Team members in Jerrell Mock, Matt McDonald, Jonas Hampton, and Paul Hogan. Korir enters the B.A.A. 10K hot off a pair of national title wins at the USATF Half Marathon and USATF 25K Championships in May.

In the wheelchair division, Jenna Fesemyer, the 2022 B.A.A. 5K women’s winner, Susannah Scaroni, the 2022 Boston Marathon runner-up, and 2020 Paralympian Yen Hoang are entered. Scaroni earned a gold medal on the track at the 2021 Paralympic Games in the 5000m, and is the fastest women’s wheelchair marathoner in U.S. history. James Senbeta and Hermin Garic are the top men’s wheelchair entrants.

For the first time in race history, Para Athletics Divisions will be offered for athletes with upper-limb, lower-limb, and visual impairments. Among the entrants confirmed include Marko Cheseto Lemtukei, Chaz Davis, and Liz Willis, each of whom won Para Division titles at April’s 126th Boston Marathon. Jacky Hunt-Broersma, who ran 104 marathons in 104 consecutive days for a Guinness World Record, and local Para athlete Adrianne Haslet are also entered.

In addition to racing, top professional athletes will participate in the first-ever B.A.A. 10K Fest & Field Day on Saturday, June 25, one day prior to the race. From 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Boston Common, 10K Fest & Field Day will feature youth fitness activities, games, appearances by professional athletes, running clinics, and more. Participants will also be able to pick-up their participant shirts and bib numbers at 10K Fest. Additional details will be available on baa.org in the coming weeks.

Registration for the 2022 B.A.A. 10K, presented by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is currently open through the B.A.A.’s online platform Athletes’ Village. All participants who enter will receive an adidas participant shirt, unique bib number, and finisher medal. Additional participant information can be found on baa.org. The race will start at 8:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, June 26 on Charles Street adjacent to Boston Common and Boston Public Garden.

Brigham and Women's Hospital, the B.A.A. 10K’s presenting sponsor and exclusive fundraising partner, will again field a team of fundraising runners. Since 2016, more than 2,100 runners and 180 teams have raised $1.2 million to fuel life-giving breakthroughs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Learn more and register at www.runbwh.org/10k.

On June 1, the B.A.A. will celebrate Global Running Day with a special pop-up location at the Boston Marathon Finish Line between 3:00-6:00 p.m. Runners can take a picture with the Boston Marathon trophy, receive giveaways, refreshments, and more! RSVP for the free event on our Facebook page, and log miles throughout the day as part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors Global Running Day Challenge. Visit https://bstnmar.org/GRD22 to sign up for free, track your miles, and print a bib to wear as you join a global community of athletes around the world logging miles.

2022 B.A.A. 10K WOMEN’S FIELD (NAME, COUNTRY, ROAD 10K PB)

Joan Chelimo Melly, Romania, 30:14^

Edna Kiplagat, Kenya, 31:06*

Sharon Lokedi, Kenya, 31:06

Mary Munanu, Kenya, 31:20

Biruktayit Degefa, Ethiopia, 31:23

Emily Sisson, USA, 31:47

Emily Durgin, USA, 31:49

Diane Nukuri, USA, 31:49

Lanni Marchant, Canada, 31:49

Vibian Chepkirui, Kenya, 31:49

Nell Rojas, USA, 31:52

Erika Kemp, USA, 32:18

Laura Thweatt, USA, 32:20

Elaina Tabb, USA, 32:40

Rachel Schneider Smith, USA, 32:47

Abbey Wheeler, USA, DB (32:53.50 10,000m)

Grayson Murphy, USA, 32:55

Fiona O’Keeffe, USA, 32:57

Katie Kellner, USA, 33:05

Des Linden, USA, 33:06*

Taylor Werner, USA, 33:35

Marielle Hall, USA, 33:36 (31:05.71 10,000m)

Allie Hackett, USA, 35:17

Jesca Chelangat, Kenya, DB (15:16 5K)

Courtney Hawkins, USA, DB (37:59.99 10,000m)

^ = Previous B.A.A. 10K Champion

* = Previous Boston Marathon Champion

 

2022 B.A.A. 10K MEN’S FIELD (NAME, COUNTRY, ROAD 10K PB)

Kennedy Kimutai, Kenya, 27:09

Bravin Kiptoo, Kenya, 27:12

Philemon Kiplimo, Kenya, 27:23

Zane Robertson, New Zealand, 27:28

Jake Robertson, New Zealand, 27:28

Wesley Kiptoo, Kenya, N/A (27:37.29 10,000m)

Ben True, USA, 27:51

Nicholas Kosimbei, Kenya, 27:52

John Dressel, USA, N/A (27:57.51 10,000m)

David Bett, Kenya, 28:08^

Dominic Korir, Kenya, 28:08

Leonard Korir, USA, 28:09

Shadrack Kipchirchir, USA, 28:12

David Nilsson, Sweden, 28:13

Tsegay Tuemay, Eritrea, 28:13

Bethwell Yegon, Kenya, 28:24

Reuben Mosip, Kenya, 28:28

Paul Hogan, USA, N/A (28:49.55 10,000m)

Johannes Motschmann, Germany, 28:51

Alex Masai, Kenya, 28:53

Colin Bennie, USA, 28:55

Futsum Zienasellassie, USA, 29:03

Matt McClintock, USA, 29:02

Jacob Thomson, USA, 29:07

John Raneri, USA, 29:19

Evans Chebet, Kenya, 29:30*

Jerrell Mock, USA, 29:36

Aaron Dinzeo, USA, 29:37

Matt McDonald, USA, 29:38

Diego Estrada, USA, 29:41

Fabiano Sulle, Tanzania, 29:53

Jonas Hampton, USA, 30:15

Tim McGowan, USA, 30:17

Connor McMillan, USA, 30:20

Josh Kalapos, USA, N/A (14:33.88 5,000m)

^ = Previous B.A.A. 10K Champion

* = Previous Boston Marathon Champion

 

(06/01/2022) Views: 1,043 ⚡AMP

Why you should aim for a negative split in the marathon

Ideally, when running a marathon, your goal should be to run even splits, i.e. to run the second half of the race in the same time as it took you to run the first half, rather than slowing down. (2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden is famous for running perfectly even splits in a lot of her races.) If you’re well trained and everything goes well on race day, you might come close to achieving this; with a few marathons under your belt, you might even try to aim for a negative split, which means running the second half of the race slightly faster than the first. 

Negative splitting is a challenging proposition for most runners. By 30 km or so (sometimes much earlier), physical and mental fatigue are starting to accumulate, and you might find yourself walking through water stations. Your rate of perceived exertion (RPE) increases with each passing kilometer, and the pace you started at feels harder and harder.

Why negative split?

But with a little experience, trying to achieve a negative split can bring a new challenge to your marathons, and there are good reasons to try it.

Andrew McKay of Toronto remembers the second time he qualified for Boston, at the Philadelphia Marathon in 2016. “It was a really bad weather day, and my iPod failed a few kilometers in, so I was just focused on clicking off Ks, and didn’t have high race goals,” he says. “So instead, I focused on my mental game, and doing only what I was capable of on the day. Each time it felt hard, I asked myself ‘is that all you have today?’ And when the answer was no, I pushed a tiny bit harder… My splits were 1:40:18 and 1:39:54, and it was a PB by four minutes, 45 seconds.”

U.S. ultrarunner Nick Coury has written about negative splitting ultras, but the same principles apply in the marathon, or even the half-marathon. (Coury, 34, won the Desert Solstice 24-hour race in Arizona in 2020, with 250 km; his Ultrasignup.com results go back to 2005, which means he’s been racing ultras since he was 17, and he has a slew of podium finishes and victories.) For example, you’re much less likely to “blow up” if you go out a little slower than your goal pace and maintain that through the first half. “The longer the race, the more time there is for something to go wrong,” Coury writes. “Blowing up at mile 22 of a marathon means four miles of suffering … Going out slow enough to negative split means the risk of each individual problem goes down.” He claims that negative splitting has often allowed him to avoid the discouragement and loss of motivation that comes with being unable to maintain his pace late in a race.

A major advantage Coury claims is reduced recovery time: “This has been the biggest mind-blower for me,” he writes. “Even when we feel ‘good,’ we’ve put the body through a lot.” He’s referring to ultras, but the same is true for marathoners. That soreness in your quads the day after a marathon represents muscle damage; but if you’ve ever had a really bad race and ended up walking most of it, you may have noticed you’re hardly sore at all. The fact is that even a slightly slower pace results in less damage, and consequently, less soreness and associated recovery time. Which means you’re ready to resume training earlier, with less fear of losing fitness before starting your next build. 

Note that “faster race times” is not one of Coury’s stated reasons to negative split, even though your times might well improve once you master the art of negative splitting. The reasons for doing it are qualitative, rather than quantitative. But you’ll likely find yourself performing better against the competition in races.

To achieve a negative split, you need to plan on running the first half of the race a few seconds per kilometer slower than your goal pace, and then picking up the pace in the second half. This sounds easy, but considering that even running your goal pace will feel very slow during the first half, it actually takes a lot of discipline to run even more slowly than that. Once you pass the halfway mark, hopefully you’re feeling relatively comfortable, and you can begin to gradually increase the pace, keeping something in reserve for a final kick to the finish line. “The more I negative split, the more I just feel straight-up good late in a race,” says Coury.

The bottom line? It’s more fun than slogging

“The hidden benefit of negative splitting is just how much fun it is,” Coury writes. “It’s hard to describe catching minutes a mile on the front runners in a race 80 per cent in, and doing so without having to dig deep and suffer. I’ve really become addicted to it, and can’t imagine going back to the days of just hanging on to get to the finish line.”

Achieving a negative split takes some practice and patience; you don’t want to slow down so much in the first half that you end up slower than if you just went about racing in your usual manner. (Coury has found 3 per cent to be about right.) Also, your performance will vary depending not only on how well you train, but on how well you recover while training, how much sleep you get, the quality of your nutrition while training, and myriad other factors. But the potential benefits are certainly worth exploring.

(05/16/2022) Views: 920 ⚡AMP
by Anne Francis

Des Linden is going to be running the 2022 BAA 10K

The Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) announced today that 2018 Boston Marathon champion and two-time Olympian Des Linden will return to compete in the 2022 B.A.A. 10K, presented by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, on Sunday, June 26. The B.A.A. 10K is the second event of the 2022 B.A.A. Distance Medley, a three-race series which also includes April’s B.A.A. 5K and November’s B.A.A. Half Marathon.

Earlier today, Linden announced on Instagram her participation in the upcoming event.

In 2018 Linden won the Boston Marathon, the first time an American woman claimed the open division title in 33 years. She has placed in the top five at the Boston Marathon five times and last ran the B.A.A. 10K in 2018 when she ran among the masses and finished hand in hand with B.A.A. runner Katsuhiro Togami.

Registration for the 2022 B.A.A. 10K, presented by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is currently open through the B.A.A.’s online platform Athletes’ Village. All participants who enter will receive an adidas participant shirt, unique bib number, and finisher medal. Additional participant information can be found on baa.org. The race will start at 8:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, June 26 on Charles Street adjacent to Boston Common and Boston Public Garden.

Athletes interested in supporting Brigham and Women's Hospital, the B.A.A. 10K’s presenting sponsor and exclusive fundraising partner, are encouraged to visit www.runbwh.org/10k. Since 2016, more than 2,100 runners and 180 teams have raised $1.2 million to fuel life-giving breakthroughs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Linden will also be participating in the first-ever B.A.A. 10K Fest & Field Day on Saturday, June 25, one day prior to the race. From 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Boston Common, 10K Fest & Field Day will feature youth fitness activities, games, appearances by professional athletes, running clinics, and more. Participants will also be able to pick-up their participant shirts and bib numbers at 10K Fest. Additional details will be available on baa.org in the coming weeks.

ABOUT THE BOSTON ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

Established in 1887, the Boston Athletic Association is a non-profit organization with a mission of promoting a healthy lifestyle through sports, especially running. The B.A.A.’s Boston Marathon is the world's oldest annual marathon, and the organization manages other local events and supports comprehensive charity, youth, and year-round running programs.

Since 1986, the principal sponsor of the Boston Marathon has been John Hancock. The Boston Marathon is part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, along with international marathons in Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York City. For more information on the B.A.A., or the B.A.A. club, racing team, and High Performance Team, please visit www.baa.org.

(05/12/2022) Views: 981 ⚡AMP

Here's How How Evans Chebet of Kenya Won the 2022 Boston Marathon

He led a Kenyan podium sweep in the deepest Boston men’s pro field ever.

Thanks to covering the stretch between 35 and 40 kilometers in an astounding 13:55, Evans Chebet of Kenya won the 2022 Boston Marathon in 2:06:51.

Lawrence Cherono, the 2019 winner, and Benson Kipruto, the 2021 champion, made it a Kenyan podium sweep. Cherono placed second in 2:07:21. Kipruto took third in 2:07:27. 

Scott Fauble was the top American, placing seventh in 2:08:52. Fauble was also the top American in 2019, when he also finished seventh. Elkanah Kibet, ninth in 2:09:07, and CJ Albertson, 13th in 2:10:23, were the second and third U.S. finishers. All three set personal bests.

Here’s a full breakdown of the 2022 Boston Marathon men’s race, from how the race was won to the biggest surprise to the $$$. 

The Winner: Evans Chebet

Chebet, 33, has been near the top of world marathoning for the past few years. Only one man in the field has a better personal best than his 2:03:00, and before today he had placed first or second in 10 marathons. But his Boston win was still a big step forward in his career.

Chebet’s best races before today were in high-level marathons such as Valencia, Prague, and Seoul, not in World Marathon Majors. He placed third in Berlin in 2016, fourth in Tokyo in 2017, and fourth last fall in London. He started Boston once before today, in 2018, when he was among the one-third of elite entrants who dropped out during that year’s horrific wind, rain, and cold.

Certainly his momentum was heading in the right direction for today’s Boston. Other than that fourth in London in October, he has been on a winning streak, taking titles in Buenos Aries in 2019 and Lake Biwa and Valencia (where he set his PR) in 2020. Chebet will no doubt cherish but not be complacent about his new status among the world’s best. He likely knows that since 2009, only one man, Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia (2013 and 2015), has won more than one Boston title.

Where the Race Was Won

Chebet covered the 22nd mile in 4:27. Or as Geay apparently thought, “4:27?!” The Tanzanian looked at his watch, either in disbelief or in regret about how much time remained in the race now that he’d opted to go with Chebet. Whatever the case, Chebet dropped Geay a couple of minutes later en route to a 4:26 23rd mile. Then he ran another 4:26 mile. 

Chebet’s 13:55 5K between 35K and 40K is good enough to win most open 5K road races. Cherono and Kipruto gave chase and overtook Geay in the process, but Chebet’s victory was never in doubt once he started his fabulous display of late-race speed. Chebet acknowledged as much at the postrace press conference, saying through an interpreter he was confident that his move would get him the win.

The Biggest Surprise

It was a fast, deep race. The 10th finisher, Kinde Atanaw of Ethiopia, ran 2:09:16. That’s 35 seconds faster than Benson Kipruto ran to win the 2021 edition.

Wait, that’s surprising? Wasn’t this said to be the best Boston field in years? Didn’t the postponement of the London Marathon to October funnel that many more elites to the start line in Hopkinton? And doesn’t everyone run fast in the super shoe era?

Well, there were super shoes six months ago when winner Kipruto was the only one to break 2:10. Also, despite what may have appeared to be the case on television, the weather was challenging. The wind was slight—usually no more than 5 miles per hour while the pros were racing—but not favorable. Des Linden, who won during the 2018 monsoon and knows from wind, said there was a persistent headwind. A weather team from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell who tracked conditions confirmed to Runner’s World there was an atypical easterly (i.e., in-their-race) wind throughout the race.

And, as we noted above, it’s become common at Boston for the men to not really start racing until the final five miles. Today, they happened to do so after an opening half of 1:03:24, almost three minutes faster than the main pack ran last year.

So, yes, a bunch of really fast guys ran fast today at Boston. But that outcome was neither predictable nor weather-enabled.

In recent years, the men’s race at Boston has often featured a large lead pack cresting Heartbreak Hill together, and then someone shattering the pack with an aggressive move soon after. That trend continued today.

Chebet was among a pack of 20 that hit halfway in 1:03:24. He occasionally appeared near the front of the pack as they moved through the Newton hills, looking eager to get going, then perhaps reminding himself it was too early, and disappearing back into the group.

Fifteen men came up and over the most famous hill in running together. With five miles to go, two-time New York City winner Geoffrey Kamworor and last year’s champ, Benson Kipruto, appeared at the front for the first time. Chebet looked around some more. Then he started to push.

Within a minute, the field was single file. Only Gabriel Geay of Tanzania went with Chebet. Kipruto and 2019 winner Lawrence Cherono ran together in third and fourth

Tidbits From the Top 20

In addition to runner-up Lawrence Cherono (2019) and third-place finisher Benson Kipruto (2021), there were two other former Boston champions in the top 20. Lemi Berhanu of Ethiopia, the 2016 winner, placed 11th in 2:09:43. Yuki Kawauchi of Japan, winner during the apocalyptic storm of 2018, finished 20th in 2:12:55. 

If sixth-place finisher Albert Korir and his knock-kneed gait looked familiar, that’s because he won the 2021 New York City Marathon in November. 

Besides Scott Fauble, Elkanah Kibet, and CJ Albertson, there were four other American men in the top 20: Matthew McDonald, 14thin 2:10:35 (a PR); Reed Fischer, 16th in 2:10:54 (also a PR); Mick Iacofano, 17th in 2:11:48; and Colin Bennie, 19th in 2:12:08.

The Prize Money

Evans Chebet, $150,000

Lawrence Cherono, $75,000

Benson Kipruto, $40,000

(04/24/2022) Views: 1,018 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Molly Seidel despite being a favorite for the 2022 Boston Marathon, still struggles with confidence

The 27-year-old battled with an eating disorder to qualify for the USA Olympic team in her first ever marathon. Despite winning bronze at Tokyo 2020 and being a favorite for the 2022 Boston Marathon, she still struggles with confidence.

Molly Seidel is a rare kind of marathon talent.

The Wisconsin native first made athletics headlines when she qualified in second place for the U.S. Olympic team for Tokyo 2020, in her first ever marathon.

Despite this, many onlookers thought that her inexperience would show at the Olympic race in Sapporo. And how wrong they turned out to be.

In what was just her third career marathon, she finished on the podium with an Olympic bronze medal around her neck. The only runners to beat her were a triple world half marathon record holder in Peres Jepchirchir, and marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei.

Using that momentum, Seidel finished fourth at the New York City Marathon in November 2021. Her time of 2:24:42 made her the fastest American woman ever.

On April 18, 2022, she goes to the 2022 Boston Marathon as one of the favorites, seeking the host nation's first win since Desiree Linden in 2018.

But despite her recent successes the American star still struggles with 'imposter syndrome'.

"I struggle with confidence and I struggle with wondering whether or not I belong at this level, whether I belong as a competitor on the world stage," Seidel told CNN.

The making of a front runner

Growing up in Wisconsin, Seidel was always a front runner in school sport. She broke course records and won several state track titles.

The first time her school's cross-country coach Mike Dolan first saw her attack an uphill run, he knew she was special.

“She would be a minute ahead of all the guys and all the girls," Dolan told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

"I knew at that time she would be a heck of a runner."

Seidel proved her coach right as she went on to win an NCAA cross country title in 2015, two NCAA indoors (3,000m & 5000m) and an outdoor 10,000m title to become the most decorated distance runner in state history.

Some onlookers even thought she could be a potential U.S. Track Olympic Team athlete for Rio 2016.

Mental health struggles

From the outside, Seidel seemed to be in the best shape of her life, but underneath she was experiencing a deep inner turmoil.

She first went public on her struggles with depression, OCD, crippling anxiety and bulimia in a podcast ran by her close friend Julia Hanlon called "Running On Om", just two months before the 2020 Olympic Trials.

“People who are close to me knew what I was going through during my time at Notre Dame (University), from 2012 to 2016. They knew my OCD had manifested itself into disordered eating,” she revealed in a follow-up interview with ESPN.

“When I was in the NCAA, it was obvious I was battling an eating disorder. It was so obvious that people would write on track and field message boards that I looked sick." - Molly Seidel to ESPN.

“They knew I struggled to eat anything I deemed unhealthy They knew I thought I had to be super lean and super fit all the time, never even allowing myself to eat a bowl of mac and cheese or go out to eat with friends without worrying about what I would order. I've never tried to hide what I went through with my family and friends.”

In 2016 she went into a treatment program for her eating disorder, which she’s still dealing with alongside the anxiety and depression.

When Seidel returned to training, she decided to stop running 5k and 10k and stepped up to the marathon.

“I always kind of dreamed of doing the marathon," Seidel told CNN.

"I think there's just this kind of like glamor and mystery around it, and especially for a younger runner who enjoys doing the distance events in high school, that's kind of the ultimate goal. Everybody wants to do the marathon."

From first marathon to Olympic medal

Her debut 42km race at the USA Trials in Atlanta landed her a place on her nation's Olympic team with race winner Aliphine Tuliamuk and third placed Sally Kipyego.

"I struggled with this kind of imposter syndrome after the trials, specifically as probably the person no one expected to make the team and the person that got probably the most criticism like: Hey, why is this girl on the team?" she continued.

"I think I really struggled with that, and I struggled going into the Games and feeling like I belonged there and trying to prove that I wasn't a mistake on that team."- Molly Seidel to CNN.

Her second marathon effort was the daunting 2020 London Marathon, where she finished sixth .

Then, just 18 months after her first marathon Seidel, who is affectionately known as “Golly Molly” earned bronze and became the third American woman ever to medal in the Olympic marathon.

In November 2021, a broken Seidel returned for her fourth marathon in New York, where she placed fourth with a personal best time despite fracturing two ribs as she prepared for the event.

It was an absolute disaster of a build up,” she recalled.

"It was really hard, not only with the mental stress that we had going on after the Games of just feeling, frankly, no motivation. And just trying to find that drive to re-up for another hard race right after an enormous race that I'd been training effectively two years for.”

Those injuries are now behind the 27-year-old, who has been training in Flagstaff.

Though she dropped out of the New York Half in March due 'setbacks in training', Seidel heads back to Boston where she lived for four years with high hopes for something special.

“Boston was like the place that made me a pro-runner. It was the first place I moved after I finished college.It was the place that kind of like rebuilt me as a runner after going through a lot of challenges through college,” she said to CBS Boston.

“Just getting to do the race in the place that made me the runner that I am and with the people that helped me become the runner that I am, it’s just enormously meaningful to me. That what makes it a lot more special than any other race.”

(04/12/2022) Views: 1,167 ⚡AMP
by Evelyn Watta

Everything you need to know about Boston Marathon 2022

Tokyo 2020 Olympic gold medalist Peres Jepchirchir will headline the 126th edition of the Boston Marathon, which returns to its customary Patriots Day (April 18) for the first time since 2019.

The men's race, meanwhile, will see seven of the last eight winners will compete including Kenya's reigning champion Benson Kipruto.

Elsewhere in the women's race Jepchirchir's Kenyan compatriots Joyciline Jepkosgei and Edna Kiplagat, and Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel will offer a stern challenge.

Below, we take a look at the top athletes to watch out for in one of the top events of the 2022 athletics calendar, the route they will follow in Boston, the schedule and how to watch the action.

Tokyo star Jepchirchir targets podium

The quality of the women’s race is impressive, with 12 women on the start list having run under 2.23.00

A year after she claimed the Olympic title and the New York City Marathon, Jepchichir has one target: to be the first woman to cross the finish line on Boylston Street.

“My high expectations is to be a winner and I would like to arrive at the day of the race in my best shape,” said Jepchirchir.

The Kenyan will compete with a familiar rival from the Tokyo 2020 podium in Olympic bronze medalist Seidel. The former Boston resident is the third American woman in history to medal in the Olympic marathon.

Two former Boston Marathon champions in 42-year-old Edna Kiplagat (2017 winner), and American Des Linden (2018) will also toe the Boston course again.

The 2022 race will also mark the 50th anniversary of the first official women’s race in 1972.

To mark the occasion, an honorary team comprised of eight women who have made a powerful impact in athletics and human rights will compete. Among the group will be Valerie Rogosheske, one of the original eight finishers in 1972.

All eyes on the returning men's champions

A very strong contingent of men's runners will lock horns on the second stop of the World Marathon Majors, following Eliud Kipchoge's comfortable victory in Tokyo.

Keep an eye on Benson Kipruto, the defending champion from Kenya and his compatriot Lawrence Cherono (2019 Boston winner), Japan’s ‘citizen runner’ Kawauchi Yuki (2018), Kenya’s Geoffrey Kirui (2017), and Ethiopian pair of Lemi Berhanu (2016), and Lelisa Desisa (2015 and 2013).

Geoffrey Kamworor, the two-time New York Marathon winner who trains with Kipchoge in Kaptagat, is back in form after being hit by a motorbike in June 2020 and sitting out for a year.

Elite Americans runners Colin Bennie, hoping to improve on his seventh-place finish from 2021, Jake Riley and Jared Ward, will also be challenging for top honors.

The course

The Boston Marathon hasn't changed from last year, but does see the number of participants increased to 30,000.

The race starts in Hopkinton, MA and ends on Boylston Street in Boston, MA. The course is flat with the most challenging stretch of the race being the steep incline between 29km-34km (Miles 18-21).The notorious Heartbreak Hill is the last of the four hills in Newton.

The schedule of events

This year’s races will start earlier than previous years with expected rolling starts.

Men's Wheelchair - 8:02 am ET.

Women's Wheelchair - 8:05 am ET.

Handcycles & Duos - 8:30 am ET.

Professional Men - 8:37 am ET.

Professional Women - 8:45 am ET.

Para Athletics Divisions - 8:50 am ET.

Rolling Start Begins - 9:00 am ET.

Rolling Start Ends - 11:30 am ET.

How to watch

For Boston residents, they can follow the race live by finding a good spot on the spectator guide, or can kick back in their living room as the marathon will be aired lived on CBS Boston’s WBZ-TV from 7:00am (EDT).

NBC Sports Network and the NBC Sports App are the exclusive national television and streaming partner for the Boston Marathon for wider America.

Live race coverage will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network and the NBC Sports App 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. ET.

(04/11/2022) Views: 986 ⚡AMP
by Evelyn Watta

Inaugural world 50km records ratified

Women’s world 50km record (mixed race)2:59:54 Desiree Linden (USA) Dorena Lake USA 13 April 2021Men’s world 50km record 2:42:07 Ketema Negasa (ETH) Port Elizabeth RSA 23 May 2021Women’s world 50km record (women-only race)3:04:24 Irvette van Zyl (RSA) Port Elizabeth RSA 23 May 2021The 50km performances achieved by Desiree Linden, Ketema Negasa and Irvette van Zyl in 2021 have been ratified as inaugural world 50km records.

Given the increasing popularity of 50km road races, the decision to add the distance to the list of events for which world records are recognised was made at the 225th World Athletics Council meeting in Tokyo in July.

The best legitimate performances as at 1 January 2022 – provided they met the minimum standards of 2:43:38 for men, 2:59:54 for women in a mixed race and 3:07:20 for a woman in a women-only race – were eligible for record ratification.

As a result, the 2:42:07 recorded by Ethiopia’s Negasa and the 3:04:24 run by South Africa’s Van Zyl, both in Port Elizabeth in May, plus the 2:59:54 achieved by the USA’s Linden in a mixed race in Oregon in April, have been ratified as world 50km records.

Linden’s performance came at the Brooks Running 50km & Marathon on 13 April 2021, when she became the first woman to run 50km in under three hours. To achieve it, the 2018 Boston Marathon champion averaged at a pace of 3:35 per kilometre, clocking 1:15:47 at the half-marathon mark.

The following month, on 23 May 2021, Negasa and Van Zyl both lined up for the Nedbank Runified Breaking Barriers 50K. Negasa went on to race at an average pace of 3:15 per kilometre to achieve his winning time of 2:42:07, while Van Zyl clocked 3:04:24 after averaging at a kilometre pace of 3:41.

(01/30/2022) Views: 868 ⚡AMP
by World Athletics

Olympic Medalists Will Headline 2022 Boston Marathon Women’s Field

Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, the 2021 Olympic gold medalist in the marathon, and her countrywoman Joyciline Jepkosgei, who ran the fastest marathon of 2021, 2:17:43, when she won the London Marathon, headline the Boston Marathon elite women’s field for 2022.

American Molly Seidel, who won Olympic bronze last summer, will also line up in Hopkinton on April 18.

The race marks the 50th anniversary of the first official women’s field at the Boston Marathon. This year’s elite women entrants include Olympic and Paralympic medalists, World Major Marathon champions, and sub-2:20 marathoners.

The race will include four Ethiopians with sub-2:20 credentials: Degitu Azimeraw, Roza Dereje, Zeineba Yimer, and Tigist Girma.

Former Boston Marathon champions Des Linden (2018) and Edna Kiplagat (2017) will race, as will Mary Ngugi of Kenya, who was third in Boston last October.

In addition to Linden, Sara Hall, who is the second-fastest woman in American marathoning history, is part of a strong crop of American talent. Nell Rojas, who was the top American finisher at Boston last year, and top-10 2020 Olympic Trials finishers Kellyn Taylor and Stephanie Bruce are also scheduled to run.

Other notable competitors include Canadian Olympian and national record-holder Malindi Elmore, two-time Canadian Olympian Natasha Wodak, and Charlotte Purdue, who is the third-fastest woman in British marathon history.

The Boston Marathon benefits from being the only World Marathon Major race on the calendar in the spring.

“As we look to celebrate the trailblazing women of 1972, we are delighted to welcome the fastest and most accomplished women’s field in the history of the Boston Marathon,” BAA President and CEO Tom Grilk said in a press release. “Though there have been many milestones in the five decades since the women’s division was established in Boston, this field of Olympic and Paralympic medalists, Boston champions, and global stars will make this a race to remember on Patriots’ Day.”

Elite field

Peres Jepchirchir (KEN) 2:17:16Joyciline Jepkosgei (KEN) 2:17:43Degitu Azimeraw (ETH) 2:17:58Roza Dereje (ETH) 2:18:30Zeineba Yimer (ETH) 2:19:28 Edna Kiplagat (KEN) 2:19:50Tigist Girma (ETH) 2:19:52Maurine Chepkemoi (KEN) 2:20:18Sara Hall (USA) 2:20:32Desiree Linden (USA) 2:22:38Viola Cheptoo (KEN) 2:22:44 Purity Changwony (KEN) 2:22:46Charlotte Purdue (GBR) 2:23:26Kellyn Taylor (USA) 2:24:28Molly Seidel (USA) 2:24:42Malindi Elmore (CAN) 2:24:50Mary Ngugi (KEN) 2:25:20 Monicah Ngige (KEN) 2:25:32Natasha Wodak (CAN) 2:26:19Nell Rojas (USA) 2:27:12 Stephanie Bruce (USA) 2:27:47Dakotah Lindwurm (USA) 2:29:04Roberta Groner (USA) 2:29:09Angie Orjuela (COL) 2:29:12Bria Wetsch (USA) 2:29:50Maegan Krifchin (USA) 2:30:17Elaina Tabb (USA) 2:30:33Lexie Thompson (USA) 2:30:37Kate Landau (USA) 2:31:56

 

(01/11/2022) Views: 1,185 ⚡AMP
by Chris Hatler