Running News Daily

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

Lots of exciting racing on the streets of New York City and a new course record

Hellen Obiri timed her kick to perfection to win a thrilling women’s race and Tamirat Tola broke the course record for a dominant men’s title triumph at the TCS New York City Marathon, a World Athletics Platinum Label event, on Sunday (5).

Claiming their crowns in contrasting styles, Obiri sprinted away from Letesenbet Gidey and Sharon Lokedi in Central Park and crossed the finish line in 2:27:23, winning by six seconds, while Tola left his rivals far behind with 10km remaining in a long run for home. Clocking 2:04:58, he took eight seconds off the course record set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011 to claim his first win in the event after fourth-place finishes in 2018 and 2019.

While super fast times have dominated recent major marathon headlines, the focus in New York was always more likely to be the battles thanks to the undulating course and competitive fields, although the men's race ended up being the quickest in event history.

The women’s race was particularly loaded. Kenya’s Lokedi returned to defend her title against a strong field that featured Boston Marathon winner Obiri, 10,000m and half marathon world record-holder Gidey, and former marathon world record-holder Brigid Kosgei, while Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir was a late withdrawal following the leg injury she sustained a week before the race.

There was no clear pre-race favourite and that remained the case right up to the closing stages, with many of the leading contenders locked in a fierce fight after a tactical 26 miles.

The pace was conservative in the first half, with a series of surges but no big moves. Eleven of the 14 members of the field remained together at half way, reached in 1:14:21. It set the scene for a final flurry, with the pace having gradually slowed after 5km was passed by the leaders in 17:23, 10km in 34:35 and 15km in 52:29.

Obiri, Lokedi and Kosgei were all firmly part of that group, along with their Kenyan compatriots Edna Kiplagat, Mary Ngugi-Cooper and Viola Cheptoo. Ethiopia’s Gidey was happy to sit at the back of the pack, with USA’s Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle taking it in turns to push the pace.

The tempo dropped again as the lead group hit the quiet of Queensboro Bridge, with the 25km mark reached in 1:28:39. But the group forged on, hitting 30km in 1:47:06 and 35km in 2:04:45.

Then Cheptoo made a move. The 2021 New York runner-up managed to create a gap but Obiri was the first to react and covered it gradually. Gidey followed and as Cheptoo surged again, Obiri and Gidey ran side-by-side behind her. It wasn’t decisive, though, and soon Lokedi and Kosgei were able to rejoin them.

As the group hit 24 miles in Central Park, Lokedi was running alongside Obiri and Cheptoo, with Gidey and Kosgei just behind. The pace picked up again but each time Kosgei was dropped, she managed to claw her way back – Lokedi leading from Gidey, Obiri and Kosgei with one mile to go.

Looking determined, two-time world 5000m champion Obiri saw her chance and began to stride for the finish. Being chased by Gidey and with Lokedi four seconds back, she kicked again at the 26-mile mark and couldn’t be caught, using her superb finishing speed to extend her winning margin to six seconds.

It was a brilliant return for Obiri, who finished sixth when making her marathon debut in New York last year and who went on to win the Boston Marathon in April. She becomes the first women since Ingrid Kristiansen in 1989 to complete the Boston and New York marathon title double in the same year.

Gidey followed Obiri over the finish line in 2:27:29, while Lokedi was third in 2:27:33, Kosgei fourth in 2:27:45 and Ngugi-Cooper fifth in 2:27:53.

"It's my honour to be here for the second time. My debut here was terrible for me. Sometimes you learn from your mistakes, so I did a lot of mistakes last year and I said I want to try to do my best (this year)," said Obiri.

"It was exciting for me to see Gidey was there. I said, this is like track again, like the World Championships in 2022 (when Gidey won the 10,000m ahead of Obiri)."

Tola finishes fast

The men’s race also started off at a conservative pace but by 20km a lead group of Tola, Yemal Yimer, Albert Korir, Zouhair Talbi and Abdi Nageeye had put the course record of 2:05:06 set 12 years ago back within reach.

Most of the field had been together at 5km, reached by the leaders in 15:28, and 10km was passed in 30:36. Then a serious surge in pace led to a six-strong breakaway pack, with Ethiopia’s Tola, Yimer and Shura Kitata joined by Kenya’s Korir, Dutch record-holder Nageeye and Morocco’s Talbi.

Kitata managed to hang on to the back of the pack for a spell but was dropped by 20km, reached by the leaders in 59:34.

The half way mark was passed by that five-strong lead group in 1:02:45, putting them on a projected pace just 24 seconds off of Mutai’s course record.

Tola – the 2022 world marathon champion – surged again along with Yimer, who was fourth in the half marathon at last month’s World Road Running Championships in Riga, and Korir, the 2021 champion in New York. They covered the 5km split from 20km to 25km in 14:41, a pace that Nageeye and Talbi couldn’t contend. It also turned out to be a pace that Korir couldn’t maintain and he was the next to drop, leaving Tola and Yimer to power away.

After an even quicker 5km split of 14:07, that leading pair had a 25-second advantage over Korir by 30km and Tola and Yimer were well on course record pace as they clocked 1:28:22 for that checkpoint. Tola was a couple of strides ahead as they passed the 19-mile mark, but Yimer was fixed on his heels.

The next mile made the difference. By the 20-mile marker Tola had a six-second advantage and looked comfortable, with Korir a further 45 seconds back at that point and Kitata having passed Nageeye and Talbi.

Then Yimer began to struggle. He was 33 seconds back at 35km, reached by Tola in 1:42:51, and he had slipped to fourth – passed by Korir and Kitata – by 40km.

Tola reached that point in 1:58:08, almost two minutes ahead of Korir, and more than four minutes ahead of Yimer, and he maintained that winning advantage all the way to the finish line.

With his time of 2:04:58, Tola becomes the first athlete to dip under 2:05 in the New York City Marathon. Korir was second in a PB of 2:06:57, while Kitata was third in 2:07:11. Olympic silver medallist Nageeye finished fourth in 2:10:21 and Belgium’s Koen Naert came through for fifth in 2:10:25.

"I am happy to win the New York City Marathon for the first time," said Tola. "It's the third time for me to participate, after two times finishing fourth. Now, I'm happy."

Tamirat Tola sets NYC Marathon record; Hellen Obiri wins women's race

Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia set a course record to win the New York City Marathon men's race on Sunday while Hellen Obiri of Kenya pulled away in the final 400 meters to take the women's title.

Tola finished in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 58 seconds, topping the 2:05.06 set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011. Tola pulled away from countrymate Jemal Yimer when the pair were heading toward the Bronx at Mile 20. By the time he headed back into Manhattan a mile later, Tola led by 19 seconds and chasing Mutai's mark.

Kenyan Albert Korir finished second in 2:06:57, while Ethiopian Shura Kitata was third in 2:07:11. Yimer fell back to finish in ninth.While the men's race was well decided before the last few miles, the women's race came down to the final stretch. Obiri, Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia and defending champion Sharon Lokedi were all running together exchanging the lead. Obiri made a move as the trio headed back into Central Park for the final half-mile and finished in 2:27:23. Gidey finished second, 6 seconds behind. Lokedi finished third in 2:27:33.

Obiri added the New York victory to her win at the Boston Marathon in April.A stellar women's field was thought to potentially take down the course record of 2:22:31 set by Margaret Okayo in 2003. Unlike last year, when the weather was unseasonably warm with temperatures in the 70s, Sunday's race was much cooler in the 50s -- ideal conditions for record-breaking times.

Instead the women had a tactical race with 11 runners, including Americans Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle, in the lead pack for the first 20 miles. Taylor and Huddle both led the group at points before falling back and finishing in eighth and ninth.

Once the lead group came back into Manhattan for the final few miles, Obiri, Gidey and Lokedi pushed the pace. As the trio entered Central Park, they further distanced themselves from Kenya's Brigid Kosgei, who finished fourth.

Catherine Debrunner won the women's wheelchair race in 1:39:32, breaking the course record by more than three minutes. Men's wheelchair race winner Marcel Hug narrowly broke his record from last year, finishing in 1:25:29 to miss the mark by 3 seconds.

"It's incredible. I think it takes some time to realize what happened," Hug said after his sixth New York City victory. "I'm so happy as well."

Hug is the most decorated champion in the wheelchair race at the event, breaking a tie with Tatyana McFadden and Kurt Fearnley for most wins in the division in event history.

Americans Kellyn Taylor and Molly Huddle Are Ready to Race the New York City Marathon

The women's professional lineup for the 2023 New York City Marathon on November 5 packs a wallop. Barring any late withdrawals, we can look forward to a showdown among a defending champion, an Olympic champion, a former marathon world record holder, the current half marathon world record holder, and the 2023 Boston Marathon champion.

While fast times aren't usually the main objective in New York, a race that traditionally favors tactics and competition over pace on an undulating 26.2-miles through the city's five boroughs, we just may see the course record--2:22:31, set all the way back in 2003--go down. 

Last year's surprise winner Sharon Lokedi of Kenya is returning to defend her title. The 2022 race was her debut at the distance and she aced her first test in 2:23:23, though since then, she's coped with a foot injury that kept her out of the Boston Marathon in April. Hellen Obiri, also of Kenya, is back, too--her first attempt at the marathon was also last year in New York, finishing sixth (2:25:49). Obiri went on to win the 2023 Boston Marathon in April, lowering her personal best to 2:21:38.

Kenyan Brigid Kosgei, who broke the marathon world record in 2019, finishing Chicago in 2:14:04 (since bettered in September at the Berlin Marathon by Ethiopian Tigst Assefa in 2:11:53) is also returning from injury after dropping out of the 2023 London Marathon in the first mile.

Joining these top contenders are 2021 Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir, also of Kenya, who won the 2021 New York City and 2022 Boston marathons and owns a 2:17:16 personal best, and Ethiopia's Letesenbet Gidey, the 2022 world champion in the 10,000 meters, ran the fastest marathon debut in history at the 2022 Valencia Marathon with a 2:16:49 effort.

The American women's field this year is small, because most athletes opted for earlier fall races, like the Chicago Marathon, to allow for more recovery time before training begins for the U.S. Olympic Trials, scheduled for February 3, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. But Molly Huddle and Kellyn Taylor are each making their return to the distance on Sunday after giving birth to their daughters in 2022--Huddle welcomed Josephine in April and Taylor welcomed Keagan in December (in addition to their eldest daughter, who is 13 years old, the Taylor family adopted a five-year-old son and almost-two-year-old daughter, growing the family to four children in the past 13 months).

Huddle, 39, and Taylor, 37, both said it was important to them to get in a healthy marathon training cycle and race experience prior to the U.S. Olympic Trials, to get back in the routine and fitness they'll utilize in preparation for 2024.

"Obviously you want to be able to finish 26.2 miles and have that fresh in your mind, but also the buildup, the marathon work--I've gotten pretty far away from that just with the pregnancy and postpartum," said Huddle, a two-time Olympian in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, who placed third at the 2016 New York City Marathon (2:28:13) in her debut at the distance. "This is supposed to be a building block toward the workload that you need for the Trials--I'm going to have to try and inch my way back a little closer to what I'd ideally do for a marathon buildup."

Huddle hasn't started a marathon since the 2020 Trials in Atlanta, which she dropped out of at the 21-mile mark. She hasn't finished a marathon since April 2019, when she lowered her personal best to 2:26:33 with a 12th-place finish at the London Marathon. However, she did run two relatively fast half marathons this year, including a fifth-place, 1:10:01 effort at the Houston Half Marathon in January.

Taylor's last marathon was two years ago in New York, where she placed sixth in 2:26:10. In September, she finished seventh in the U.S. 20K Championships in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1:08:04.

Going into the 2023 New York City Marathon, here's what the two top Americans had to say as they reflected on their postpartum experiences and goals for their first 26.2-mile race back:

They would have preferred to race the Chicago Marathon because of the timing.

Huddle, who is the former American record holder in the half marathon, 5,000 meters, and 10,000 meters, was hoping to make her postpartum comeback on a flatter, faster course like the October 8 Chicago Marathon, which would have also afforded an additional three weeks of time until the U.S. Olympic Trials. Taylor, who placed eighth at the 2020 Trials in Atlanta and owns three top-10 finishes in New York, agreed that Chicago's timing would've been more ideal. Neither of them were accepted into the professional field, however.

"We birthed humans. We were still running--it's not like we've been sitting on the couch eating Cheetos for a year," Taylor said. "It didn't work out and that's fine. I'll go where I'm wanted, so it doesn't really bother me that much--we'll still have 11 weeks until the Trials, and New York's my favorite marathon, hands down. I love the course. I love the people."

Huddle is also looking forward to racing in New York.

"They've always been happy to have me and that was important. I love racing through the city," she said. "My only concern was it's a very challenging course and there probably won't be any PRs happening, so I'll have to chase that later in the next year and a half."

A spokesperson for the Chicago Marathon said in an email message, in part, that the race officials "weigh many factors including performance standards, athlete interest, event resources, and operational considerations," when choosing athletes to accept into the professional race each year. "While our goal is to host as many athletes as possible, there are years where demand to participate exceeds the resources available and operational needs to host a professional race," the spokesperson wrote.

Huddle attributes her injury in the spring (mostly) to breastfeeding.

In March, Huddle experienced her first major bone injury of her career--a femoral stress fracture--which took her out of training for three months. After talking with her medical team, she's fairly convinced that her dietary needs weren't being met while breastfeeding. Since then, she's learned to adjust her fueling to account for what she loses not only to training, but also feeding her daughter.

"I refer to it as my body's new rules, because old me always knew how to fuel and I knew what I could handle workload-wise," Huddle said. "Now there is just more taxing the system and there's less time to mindfully refuel."

Taylor is finding much more camaraderie this time around.

When Taylor had her first daughter 13 years ago, not many fellow competitors had children. This time, however, she is finding a plethora of support from elite distance running moms.

In 2010, pro athletes also couldn't find much, if any, information about how to safely train through pregnancy and postpartum. And although solid research still lags, plenty of athletes are ready and willing to share their experiences with each other, which Taylor didn't have the first time around.

"It's become really helpful to be able to text each other and just directly ask how they handled one thing or another," Taylor says. "There isn't necessarily a lot of information, but with the network of athletes that have kids, I feel like there's more coming out now."

Huddle and Taylor each took a bit more conservative approach to training for New York this time. In the past, Taylor's peak weekly mileage could go as high as 130, but this time around she topped out around 112 miles. Similarly, Huddle's mileage prior to pregnancy would hit around 115 and this time she kept it to about 80 miles per week and substituted an Elliptigo session for a second run some days.

Their goals for Sunday run the gamut.

Despite a severe lack of sleep, Taylor's recovery from pregnancy and childbirth has gone exceedingly smoothly, she said, emphasizing that everybody's return is different and she believes she just lucked out with her genetics.

Knowing that she'll face a stellar international field on Sunday, Taylor is ready to run an aggressive race, targeting a 2:23 finish. (Her personal best is 2:24:29 from 2018 at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth Minnesota, but that was before the adventure of super shoes.)

"I think I'm in a really good position. I think I have the potential to run really well," said Taylor, who will wear Hoka Rocket X 2 shoes. "I think I can run 2:23 on a good day and that could put me in the hunt to do something, depending on how the race plays out."

Huddle has more of a wait-and-see approach, though, she notes, it is the first marathon in which she'll race in super shoes. She'll race in the Saucony Endorphin Elite shoes.

"I just don't think I'm going to be hanging with the world record holders, so I'm going to let them go do their thing," Huddle said. "I'm just focusing more on myself and just seeing what I can do."

It'll be a learning experience for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

The duo will each have a bigger fanbase than ever with their families coming to New York to support them. It's also an opportunity to see how they can organize the logistics of racing, childcare, and race prep ahead of the Trials in February.

Huddle, who is also raising money for &Mother, a nonprofit organization that supports athletes who pursue their career goals while parenting, as part of her marathon experience on Sunday, is hoping she will be done breastfeeding by February, but New York will serve as a test run in case she is not.

"I think it'll be interesting just seeing what the routine is like with my family, how we're going to shuffle everyone around with childcare and sleeping arrangements," Huddle said.

For Taylor, an additional hotel room was necessary to accommodate the whole family--and she couldn't be happier to have everybody there.

"It's going to be complete chaos," she said, laughing. "My parents are coming, so they're going to be the saving graces."

Lokedi keen to defend New York title as she faces off with Jepchichir, Obiri

Lokedi keen to defend New York title as she faces off with Jepchichir, Obiri.

The 2022 New York City Marathon winner Sharon Lokedi will be seeking to defend her title against a formidable women's field during the 52nd edition of the marathon slated for Sunday.

Lokedi won the race in what was her marathon debut last year, pulling away in the final two miles to finish the race in 2:23:23.

She became the eighth athlete to win the race on debut. She has, however, been dealing with an injury for the better part of the year, which forced her to withdraw from the Boston Marathon in April.

Lokedi will be up against the 2020 Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Peres Jepchirchir who will be eyeing the top prize. The 30-year-old is the only athlete to win the Olympics, the New York City Marathon and Boston Marathon.

The two-time World Half Marathon gold medalist had been unbeaten since winning Boston last year until Dutch runner Sifan Hassan defeated her in London last April.

Joining the duo will be two-time Olympic silver medalist Hellen Obiri who is fresh from a triumphant display in the Boston Marathon.

Also in the fold will be the former world record holder Brigid Kosgei and veteran Edna Kiplagat who is a two-time world champion, Boston, London, and New York City winner.

The Kenyan squad will face stiff competition from Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey who is a 10,000m and half-marathon world record holder.

She will be making her New York City Marathon debut after her 2022 victory in Valencia in 2:16:49, which is the fastest women’s marathon debut in history.

Yalemzerf Yehualaw from Ethiopia and USA’s double Olympian Molly Huddle will also be in contention for the title.

Leading the men’s elite race will be 2021 winner Albert Korir who will be seeking to duplicate his heroics during the 2021 edition.

He will be joined by Edwin Cheserek who is a 17-time NCAA (National Collegiate Athletics Association) cross country champion.

2023 World Athletics Championship silver medalist Maru Teferi of Israel will be seeking to upset the Kenyan contingent as well as Ethiopia’s Mosinet Geremew.

Netherlands’s Olympic silver winner Abdi Nageeye and 2021 New York Marathon champion and Morocco's Zouahir Talbi will also be eyeing the top spot.

Three elite athletes have, however,  pulled out of the race including the defending champion Evans Chebet, his Kenyan compatriot Geoffrey Kamworor and Ethiopian Gotytom Gebreslase.

This Elite Marathoner Plans on Running in Olympics After Pregnancy

Jess Stenson—an Australian Olympian and 2022 Commonwealth Games marathon champion—is due in September. Reigning Commonwealth Games marathon champion Jess Stenson has her sights set on competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics. If all goes according to plan, that would put her just under a year after her September 2023 due date. Yep, the Australian runner is pregnant with her second child, and told Courier Mail, “I am open to it all,” about competing in Paris.

Stenson is part of a league of other professional runners who are new moms and running fast, like Aliphine Tuliamuk and Molly Huddle. In fact, she’s already proven that pregnancy and motherhood doesn’t necessarily slow you down—she had the best year of her professional running career in 2022, after giving birth to her first child in late 2019. Stenson and her husband decided to start having children in 2018, despite the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. As is the case for many female athletes who want to get pregnant, it was a challenge to plan around her racing and training schedule.

“I knew that starting that process and potentially becoming a mum, I might not get back to my best,” Stenson told Courier Mail. “I just had to be comfortable with that and know that I would try.”

Try she did, and she was back to jogging just six weeks after having her first child. The now 35-year-old ended up having to scrap her plans for Tokyo in 2021 due to a bone stress injury, but in 2022, she went on to win the Commonwealth Games marathon in Birmingham, England, and then finished ninth at the New York City Marathon in 2:27:27.

Stenson also believes her postpartum mental game is stronger than ever, and she approaches her training a bit differently than before, finding it to be more of a privilege than a task. 

“I guess I saw training as just part of my job beforehand,” she said to Courier Mail. “But its importance in my life is even greater now as a mum because you do crave that time to yourself and the opportunity to just get out and free your mind.”

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.”

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.

Eilish McColgan (30:00.87) and Alicia Monson (30:03.82) Break National Records At The TEN

The British and American records in the women’s 10,000 meters both went down late Saturday night in California as Eilish McColgan outdueled Alicia Monson over the final lap of The TEN in San Juan Capistrano. McColgan, the Commonwealth Games champion at 10,000 who is building up for her marathon debut in London on April 23, was only added to the field this week but felt confident in her fitness after five weeks of altitude training in Colorado. It proved an inspired decision as she ran 30:00.87 to narrowly break Paula Radcliffe’s British record of 30:01.09 set in August 2002.

A few seconds behind McColgan, Alicia Monson nabbed her second American record of 2023, running 30:03.82 to smash the previous record of 30:13.17 set by Molly Huddle in the 2016 Olympic final in Rio. Three weeks ago, Monson ran 8:25.05 at the Millrose Games to break the American indoor (and overall) record for 3,000 meters.

Both women were also safely under the 30:40 standard for the 2023 World Championships and 2024 Olympics on a good night for running fast (50-degree temps, still conditions).

Monson and her camp had billed the race as an American record attempt and they enlisted her On Athletics Club teammate Josette Andrews (a 14:51 5k runner) to handle pacing duties, along with Eleanor Fulton. When Andrews dropped out at 5k (15:09 for McColgan and Monson), they were actually a few seconds behind AR pace, but Monson took over and righted the ship, dropping the pace from 73-second laps to 72’s, then 71’s. By the bell, which Monson reached in the lead thanks to a 70.45 penultimate lap, the question was not whether the AR would go down, but whether either woman would break 30:00 – and of course, who would win the race?

McColgan, who had clung faithfully to Monson throughout the race, finally went wide on the backstraight of the bell lap and passed Monson, and the American had no response as McColgan powered to victory with a 64.87 last 400m. Monson could not match that speed, closing out her effort in 67.99, and though she did not win, her American record was very well-deserved after so much grinding from the front.

No one else earned the World/Olympic standard, but a trio of Americans earned big personal bests in 3rd-4th-5th. Running just her second 10k, 2021 NCAA 5k champ Elly Henes won the battle for 3rd in 30:48.26 to edge 2022 Worlds team member Natosha Rogers (30:48.69) as both women moved ahead of Emily Sisson (30:49.57) and Deena Kastor (30:50.32) into 6th and 7th on the all-time US list. Rogers’ Puma Elite teammate Fiona O’Keeffe also got a pb in 5th, running 30:55.05 to become the 11th American woman to go sub-31.

Results (Analysis at bottom)

1 Eilish McColgan Asics 30:00.86 #$WRLD

2 Alicia Monson On Athletics Club 30:03.82 #$WRLD

3 Elly Henes Adidas 30:48.26

4 Natosha Rogers Puma Elite 30:48.69

5 Fiona O’Keeffe Puma Elite 30:55.05

6 Laura Galvan Hoka 31:04.08

7 Dominique Scott Adidas 31:14.00

8 Carrie Verdon TEAM Boulder 31:52.94

9 Susanna Sullivan unattached 31:55.80

10 Amy Davis-Green Hansons-Brooks ODP 32:10.59

11 Katie Izzo Adidas 32:22.47

12 Jeralyn Poe Tracksmith 32:39.10

Men’s race

The men’s race came down to a battle of the last two US 10,000-meter champions: Woody Kincaid and Joe Klecker. Just as he did five weeks ago over 5,000 meters in Boston, Kincaid earned the victory, though he made his move slightly earlier this time around, taking the lead with 900m to run and holding off Klecker on the last lap, closing in 55.96 to Klecker’s 56.92 as Kincaid ran 27:06.37 to Klecker’s 27:07.57. Both men ran personal bests (they now sit #5 and #7 on the all-time US list) and both hit the 2023 World Championship standard of 27:10, but neither was able to earn the Olympic standard of 27:00.

Klecker and Kincaid both went in with the aim of hitting the Olympic standard and joining Grant Fisher, Galen Rupp, and Chris Solinsky as the only American members of the sub-27:00 club. Klecker’s OAC teammate Ollie Hoare was the main pacemaker (though there were several: Ehab El-Sandali, Amon Kemboi, and Athanas Kioko all helped out) and he took them through 5k in 13:35, at which point British Olympian Sam Atkin, running with the lead pack, surprisingly dropped out.

When Hoare stepped off after covering 6400m in 17:23.90 (27:11 pace), sub-27:00 was within striking distance. But Klecker, despite working hard, could not increase the pace, and Kincaid showed no interest in sharing the lead despite Klecker motioning for him to do so.

By a mile to go, Klecker and Kincaid had dropped everyone else, and Kincaid, sensing the World standard slipping away, hit the front with 900 to go. Klecker stuck right with him, however, and it wasn’t until the final turn that Kincaid was able to gain real separation as both men closed well to get under the World standard – though not the Olympic standard.

Kioko, who stayed in the race, was the best of the rest, running 27:23.84 for 3rd, holding off Conner Mantz, who ran 27:25.30 in the midst of his Boston Marathon buildup (just .07 off his personal best from this meet last year).

Results (analysis below results)  *Lap by lap splits

1 Woody Kincaid Nike 27:06.37 WRLD

2 Joe Klecker On Athletics Club 27:07.57 WRLD

3 Athanas Kioko pacer 27:23.84

4 Connor Mantz Nike 27:25.30

5 Jonas Raess On Athletics Club 27:26.40

6 Ren Tazawa Komazawa Univ 27:28.04

7 Nils Voigt Puma 27:30.01

8 Sam Chelagna US Army WCAP 27:38.02

9 Luis Grijalva Hoka 27:42.56

10 Alex Masai Hoka NAZ Elite 27:42.80

11 Wesley Kiptoo Hoka NAZ Elite 27:45.81

12 Ben Flanagan On Running 27:49.67

13 Kanta Shimizu Subaru 27:51.23

14 Benjamin Eidenschink unattached 27:51.74

15 Tatsuhiko Ito Honda 27:54.64

16 Aaron Bienenfeld unattached 27:55.96

17 Ahmed Muhumed unattached 27:56.99

18 Frank Lara Altra/Roots Running Project 28:00.75

19 Emmanuel Bor unattached 28:01.09

20 Alberto Gonzalez Mindez Guatemala 28:30.63

21 Zach Panning Hansons-Brooks ODP 28:35.52

U.S. Champion Erika Kemp is set for Boston Marathon debut

Erika Kemp has lived in Boston since 2018, training with the Boston Athletic Association’s pro team. But she has never trained on the Boston Marathon course. Why would she? Most of her training was for track and road 5Ks and 10Ks and the occasional longer distance, like the U.S. 20K championships, which she won in 2021.

Now that Kemp’s making her marathon debut—at Boston—she and her new coach, Kurt Benninger, who is based in Providence, Rhode Island, figured it was time to put some long runs in on the road she’ll be racing in April. The plan on February 26 was for her to run 20 miles, the longest run she’s ever gone, starting at mile 3 of the course and getting through the Newton hills. It’s a straight shot—at least for most people.

But Kemp, 28, who admits she gets lost easily, was running on the right side of the road through the town of Wellesley when she inadvertently got off course. She ran onto Route 9, an unappealing stretch of road with office parks, car dealerships, and a 50-mile-per-hour speed limit. She didn’t realize she was on the wrong road until 6 miles later. By the time she got back to her home in Boston’s Allston neighborhood, she had exceeded 23 miles—and she never did see those Newton hills.

She put in a call to Benninger.

“I didn’t quite know how to tell him,” Kemp said. “It’s still a relatively new coaching relationship. How do I tell him I ran an extra 20 minutes and didn’t see the second half of the course I was supposed to see?”

Benninger, though, thought it was funny. So did Kemp. “He was super chill about it,” she said, and he told her, “Well, you got some extra volume. We’ll definitely go over directions more carefully next time.”

New beginnings

Early 2023 has brought many new roads for Kemp—some figurative, some literal. She decided not to re-sign with the B.A.A.’s High Performance Team at the end of last year. Now, in addition to the new race distance she’s trying, she has a new sponsorship deal with Brooks and a new training situation.

After Boston, she’ll move to Providence to be in person with Benninger’s group, which includes pros Marielle Hall, Helen Schlactenhaufen, and Brian Shrader (though the latter two train mainly in Boston). In addition, Benninger’s wife, Molly Huddle, who is coached by Ray Treacy, comes to a lot of their practices. Occasionally Emily Sisson, another Treacy athlete, will be in town. Kemp expects she’ll match up with Hall for most of her workouts.

It’s a big change from what she’s been doing, but Kemp felt like she needed it. She was a six-time All-American at North Carolina State University, and she improved on her college times at the B.A.A., running 15:10 for 5,000 meters on the track and 31:35 for 10,000. But she felt like she came up short at the biggest moments.

“I have yet to feel like I really have had that breakthrough race,” she said, “where all of my training and improvements have been reflected in a singular performance. I have had a lot of races the last couple of years where I got to the start line kind of fatigued. I don’t feel like it’s 100 percent reflective of how much I’ve improved.”

When she decided to leave the B.A.A., she didn’t have a training situation lined up for herself yet, and she was still talking to sponsors. So she got herself through the early days of marathon training by consulting with friends and a network of experienced marathoners, building up her mileage to 90 per week from the high 70s or low 80s she had been doing. It was a big jump for her, but she handled it well.

The only downside to marathon training is the constant hunger. Kemp is usually a sound sleeper, but she found herself waking up at 3 a.m. several nights in a row. Finally she realized she was hungry and started scarfing down a bowl of cereal. Then she’d go right back to sleep.

“You’re literally eating a bowl of cereal in the dark, and thinking, ‘What is my life right now?’” she said.

Whatever she was running—and eating—worked: In January, she finished seventh at the Houston Half Marathon in a PR of 1:10:14, averaging 5:22 per mile. With the performance, Kemp qualified for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, which she intends to run.

She said that Brooks felt like a natural fit as a sponsor, and the company didn’t mind if she wanted to stay on the East Coast instead of joining one of its two established training groups in Michigan or Seattle.

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.

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.

Emily Sisson sets a new half marathon American record in Houston

Emily Sisson shattered her own American record in the half marathon by finishing in 1:06:52. She is now the first American woman to break the 1:07 barrier after placing second behind race winner Hiwot Gebremaryam of Ethiopia, who ran 1:06:28.

Ethiopian Leul Gebresilase Aleme won the men’s half in a sprint finish. He ran 1:00:34—less than a second ahead of runner-up Wesley Kiptoo of Kenya.

Emily Sisson Re-Breaks Her Own American Record

Sisson improved on her record the hard way by going out fast, slowing down slightly through the last sections, and kicking it in towards the finish. After Gebremaryam broke the race open in the first few miles—by 5K, she was already 17 seconds ahead of the chase pack—Sisson ran with Jessica Warner-Judd of Great Britain through 15K. The American record-holder averaged 5-minute mile pace through the first 5K but struggled in the latter half of the course, clocking 5:12 miles around 20K.

“I went out a little too fast the first 5K or so, so the last few miles I was definitely feeling it,” Sisson said on the ABC 13 broadcast.

But Sisson pushed through the discomfort as she neared the finish line to make history once again. “I’m really excited about it. I really wanted to break 67 minutes and I’m happy I did,” she said. “I actually think I could have run a little more evenly so I’m already hoping to run another half and even try to run faster.”

Sisson broke the American record for the first time in May 2022 at the USATF Half Marathon Road Championships in Indianapolis. The Providence College alum won the national title in 1:07:11, four seconds faster than the previous American record set by Sara Hall less than four months earlier at the 2022 Houston Half Marathon.

Prior to the U.S. championships, Sisson came extremely close to the mark on two occasions. When the record was 1:07:25 (held by her former training partner Molly Huddle), she ran 1:07:30 in 2019 and 1:07:26 in 2020.

Last year, the momentum continued in a big way for Sisson when she broke the American record in the marathon. In October, she demolished the time by running 2:18:29 in Chicago—lowering the previous record set by Keira D’Amato at the 2022 Houston Marathon by 43 seconds.

Close Finish in the Men’s Half Marathon

The men’s half marathon featured one of the most exciting finishes of the day. After pulling away from the chase pack together with a few miles remaining, Aleme and Kiptoo battled down to the wire. The East African competitors fought through the homestretch—where Kiptoo kept looking back to assess the distance between himself and his rival—until Aleme sprinted ahead at the last second to claim the victory.

Aleme’s performance follows a breakthrough season, which included a runner-up finish at the 2022 London Marathon in October.

Conner Mantz was the first American to finish after placing sixth in 1:01:12.

Past Greats Return to Racing, While Familiar Faces Make Debuts

In addition to Sisson’s record, there were several other notable performances in the Houston women’s half marathon, including Huddle in her postpartum return to competitive racing. The previous American record-holder finished fifth in 1:10:01 almost nine months after welcoming her daughter. In her 13.1 debut, former 1500-meter specialist and Olympic bronze medalist Jenny Simpson placed ninth in 1:10:35. Also making her debut, Vanessa Fraser finished 13th in 1:11:00. All three had room to spare in achieving the standard to compete at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Three-time Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba also made her highly anticipated return. In the Ethiopian's first race in four years, she finished 16th in 1:11:35.

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.

The 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon returned to Franklin Park this morning as more than 6,300 athletes completed the 13.1-mile challenging course

At the front of the field, Kenyans Geoffrey Koech and Viola Chepngeno prevailed as men’s and women’s open division champions.

Despite sporadic rain throughout the morning, participants covered the challenging course through Boston and Brookline with smiles and enthusiasm. 

With a ferocious sprint into White Stadium, Chepngeno claimed the women’s open win in 1:10:40, just three seconds in front of Ethiopia’s Bosena Mulatie. Chepngeno, Mulatie and Hiwot Gebrekidan (Ethiopia) ran a majority of the race together, but it was ultimately the B.A.A. Half Marathon debutant in Chepngeno having the best finish of all. 

“I’m happy. So, so happy,” said a smiling Chepngeno. “The rain was cold. But I am happy so much!”

Gebrekidan was third in 1:11:09, with B.A.A. High Performance Team member Erika Kemp finishing as the top American, seventh in 1:12:13. Team USA Olympians Molly Huddle and Molly Seidel placed 12th (1:13:29) and 16th (1:16:22), respectively.

As a pack of a dozen runners led the men’s race through 10K, it was Koech taking the reigns at mile 9. While Tsegay Kidanu (Ethiopia), Zouhair Talbi (Marocco), and Teshome Mekonen (USA) did their best to keep close, it was Koech who stormed out of Franklin Park Zoo in front and wound up winning in 1:02:02. Kidanu and Talbi rounded out the podium in 1:02:10 and 1:02:15, while Mekonen placed fourth in 1:02:28 as the top American finisher. This was Mekonen’s first race as an American citizen. 

“The race was good, I am happy in Boston,” noted Koech, who said he came into the race briming with confidence. When did he know he had victory sealed? “The last 5K, all of the twisting [turns before the finish].”

(From Let's Run) Teshome Mekonen was born and raised in the Tigray region of Ethiopia but has been based in the US since 2020 and gained his citizenship in August (we’ll have more on his story next week on LetsRun.com). Only four Americans have ever run faster than Mekonen’s pb in the half (60:02), and while that time dates from 2018, it’s also worth noting that Mekonen raced Conner Mantz at the NYC Half in March of this year and beat Mantz by a minute.

He’s clearly one to watch for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials, though his two marathons so far haven’t gone very well (2:22 in New York last year, 2:13 in Ottawa this year). His performance today was solid — though 62:28 is over two minutes off his pb, the hills and rain slowed most of the field. For reference, men’s winner Geoffrey Koech ran 62:02 today but 60:01 at the Cardiff Half in October.

After crossing the finish line in Boston today, Mekonen crossed his arms above his head in a similar gesture to the one made by Feyisa Lilesa at the 2016 Olympic marathon. Mekonen said his gesture was to bring attention to his home region of Tigray, which has been at the center of a civil war between Tigray and the Ethiopian federal government over the last two years. While there was positive news last week with leaders from each side agreeing to a truce, getting humanitarian aid to the area has still been a problem and Mekonen has been unable to communicate with his family and friends in the region.

“In Tigray, still everything is no food, no medicine, no bank, no electricity,” Mekonen said.

Mekonen said right now he’s already started training for his next marathon, which will come on January 15 in Houston.

“My [training] program, everything is marathon [right now],” Mekonen said. “This [race] is like time trial.”

Mekonen said he’s hoping to run 2:08 in Houston and finish in the top three.

Quick Take: Molly Seidel — “I’m just in such a drastically better place than I have been for a long time”

Molly Seidel’s time today of 76:22 was, by her standards, poor — at her best, she can easily maintain that pace for a full marathon. But Seidel was still in good spirits. For the first time in a long time, she feels she is in a good place with her body and her mental health. Today’s race was a chance to lay down a marker of where she’s at right now, but she expects to get a lot faster in the coming months.

“While it’s frustrating to come out and not be anywhere near the front pack, it’s nice knowing that I’m just in such a drastically better place than I have been for a long time,” Seidel said.

It has been a rough year for Seidel. After the high of a bronze medal at the Olympics and American course record in the New York City Marathon last year, Seidel has faced a number of challenges in 2022. She dropped out of the Boston Marathon with a hip injury that wound up as a sacral stress fracture. She has also struggled with disordered eating and was forced to withdraw from the New York Mini 10K earlier this year because she was waiting to receive a TUE for Adderall, which she had been taking to manage her ADHD (she no longer takes the drug). But, thanks to the help of her family, her coach Jon Green, and the rest of her support team, Seidel said she is feeling the best — mentally and physically — that she has for a long time.

The stress fracture sidelined Seidel until October, and even once she resumed training, it was mostly cross-training due to an ankle issue that flared up. But she is back to full training now and says she has hit 110 miles the last couple of weeks.

“I’m like one of those steaks that’s raw and you throw it on the grill and fast-sear it,” Seidel joked.

Quick Take: Molly Huddle’s comeback continues — though it’s different racing now as a mom

Molly Huddle had already raced twice since giving birth to daughter Josephine in April, both at 10 kilometers (33:59 at the Lone Gull 10K on September 25 and 33:32 at the Boston 10K for Women on October 8). Today was another step forward on her comeback and the longest race she’s done so far.

Huddle said her time of 73:29 was slower than she hoped but knew it would be tough after 10 miles — which is exactly what happened. Huddle already has another half lined up in Houston in January and hopes that with two more months of training under her belt, she will be able to feel stronger in that race.

“This [race today] will bring me along, for sure,” Huddle said. “I think the next half will be a lot faster.”

Huddle also thinks she’ll feel stronger once she stops breastfeeding Josephine — she had to pump milk today 20 minutes before her warmup.

Huddle is returning to a faster marathon scene in the United States than the one she left when she took her maternity break. The American record has been broken twice this year and now stands at 2:18:29 to Huddle’s occasional training partner Emily Sisson.

“It’s crazy,” Huddle said. “The women are running so fast and it’s so deep up front. From the 2:18 to 2:22 range, we have a lot of women. I’m just hoping to PR. Mine is 2:26 the last time I ran. That was pre-supershoe era.”

Huddle will be 39 by the time of the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials and right now would not be among the favorites to make the team — even in her prime, Huddle was always better at the shorter distances on the roads. She admitted she’d need to catch some breaks to have a shot at the Olympic team in 2024 but isn’t completely counting herself out.

“Marathons have a lot of variables, so I’d need a few to go in my favor and against somebody else,” Huddle said. “But you never know. The marathon, I think I have a shot.”

Chepngeno, Tanui lead star-studded field for Boston Half Marathon

Vicoty Chepngeno and Josphat Tanui head the line-up for the elite field for the Boston  Half Marathon set for November 13.

Chepngeno, who is the 2022 Aramco Houston Half Marathon champion, heads the list of fastest female athletes with a personal best time of 1:05:03.

Chepngeno has competed in a couple of half marathons since the year began including Istanbul in March, where she placed fourth in 1:06:58.

Ethiopia’s Bosena Mulatie lines up as the second fastest in the field with a PB of 1:05:46 posted at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon in February, where he wound up fifth.

Also to watch will be another Ethiopian, Hiwot Gebrekidan, who placed fifth in 2:19:10 at the recent Tokyo Marathon. Gebrekidan also finished fourth at the Great North Run in 1:07:22.

Great Britain’s Jess Piasecki and USA’s Molly Huddle are among the top 10 fastest women and will be competing for top honours.

Piasecki and Molly have personal best times of 1:07:20 and 1:07:25 respectively. Other Kenyan women in the race include Cynthia Jerotich (1:06:04), Viola Chepngeno (1:06:48), Vivian Chepkirui (1:08:02) and Mary Munanu (1:11:56).

In the men’s category, Tanui heads the field with a personal best of 59:22, which he posted at the 2017 Ústi nad Lábem Half Marathon top place second.

Another Kenyan, Shadrack Kimining is the second fastest with a time of 59:27. Kimining placed second (1:00:34) at this year’s Rimi Riga Half Marathon back in May.

The Ethiopian duo of Lelisa Desisa and Tsegay Kidanu will also be in the race with the aim of spoiling the Kenyans’ party.

Desisa, the 2019 World Marathon champion, is the third fastest in the field with a PB time of 59:30. On the other hand, Kidanu has a PB of 59:52.  Mexico’s Jose Santana with a personal best of 1:01:11 will also be in contention.

Other Kenyans in the field include Geoffrey Koech (59:36), James Ngandu (1:01:28), Dennis Kipkosgei (1:03:23) and debutant Vincent Kiprop.

2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon Returns to Franklin Park on Sunday

The 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon, presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, will be held this Sunday, November 13, starting and finishing within Franklin Park. The event returns to an in-person format for the first time since 2019 and features a star-studded professional field leading the charge for 9,000 entrants from the Greater Boston area and beyond.

To support your coverage of this year’s event, please find event storylines and race information below. Media interested in covering the 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon can submit credential requests here or email media@baa.org for more information. Credential pick-up will occur at the Media Tent within White Stadium on Sunday, beginning at 6:45 a.m. Additional details will be sent in the coming days to those who’ve requested credentials.

The B.A.A. Half Marathon will start at 8:00 a.m. this Sunday, November 13, from Franklin Park. The 13.1-mile course runs along the picturesque Emerald Necklace Park System, past area landmarks such as the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park Zoo, before finishing at White Stadium in Franklin Park. A detailed course map can be found here.

- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund has partnered with the B.A.A. Half Marathon since 2003 as the race’s presenting sponsor and exclusive charity team. Through this relationship, Dana-Farber runners have collectively raised more than $8 million to support groundbreaking cancer research, and enabled Dana-Farber scientists and clinicians to positively impact the lives of cancer patients around the world. A team of 400 athletes will be part of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Jimmy Fund team for this year’s event, having already raised nearly $350,000 to defy cancer.

- At the front of the field, Olympic and Paralympic medalists, Boston Marathon champions, and top international contenders will square off in pursuit of finishing atop the podium. Among the notable professional athletes entered are Olympic marathon bronze medalist and former Boston resident Molly Seidel, two-time Boston Marathon champions Lelisa Desisa and Daniel Romanchuk, and USA Olympian and former American half marathon record holder Molly Huddle. 

Seven women who’ve run under 1:08:30 and nine men with lifetime bests under 1:01:30 will compete on the roads of Boston. Desisa is also a two-time B.A.A. Half Marathon champion and the event record holder (1:00:34). Romanchuk aims to become the first athlete in history to podium at each of the B.A.A.’s four signature events (B.A.A. 5K, B.A.A. 10K, B.A.A. Half Marathon, and Boston Marathon). On Sunday he finished second at the TCS New York City Marathon in 1:27:38.

- For the first time, the B.A.A. Half Marathon will feature a Para Athletics Division showcasing athletes with lower-limb, upper-limb, and visual impairments. Competitors include Jacky Hunt-Broersma (T64, lower-limb impairment), who finished a Guinness World Record 104 marathons in 104 days this year; Marko Cheseto Lemtukei (T62, lower-limb impairment), who won the Para Athletics Division at the 2021 and 2022 Boston Marathons (timing 2:37:01 in April) and Brian Reynolds (T62, lower-limb impairment), who has run a world best 1:17 for the half marathon. The B.A.A. Half Marathon course is World Para Athletics record eligible, signaling that national or world records may be in jeopardy of falling on race day for wheelchair and Para athletes.

- Among the field of nearly 9,000 participants are 257 athletes also entered in April’s 127th Boston Marathon. Participants in this year’s B.A.A. Half Marathon are from 46 U.S. states (plus Washington, DC) and 95 countries.

- 1,418 participants are aiming to complete the 2022 B.A.A. Distance Medley, a three-race series which includes April’s B.A.A. 5K, June’s B.A.A. 10K, and November’s B.A.A. Half Marathon. The B.A.A. Distance Medley series provides athletes a year-long way to experience training and racing at three different distances, with the aim of improving fitness throughout the calendar year.  

- The B.A.A. Half Marathon is a family-friendly event for athletes and spectators of all ages. Free youth events will be offered on race morning within Franklin Park, including races and medals for all. Youth track races will begin on the White Stadium track at 8:20 a.m. Registration will open at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday.

- Spectators and runners are encouraged to download the B.A.A. Racing App powered by TCS for live race day tracking, leaderboards, results, custom selfie stations, course maps, information, and more. The B.A.A. Racing App is available for free within Apple iOS and Android.

- On display for viewing at the 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon will be an Indigenous Peoples' Day Banner, created by Boston Art Institute alum Yatika Fields (Osage/Cherokee/Creek) which honors the Boston Marathon's Indigenous runners, past and present. Following the Awards Ceremony on race day, the banner will be blessed as it is sent from Boston to its home with Wings of America in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where it will inspire young Native runners.

The blessing will be given by Hiawatha Brown (Narragansett), the longest serving Tribal Councilman, a Veteran of the United States Navy, and the nephew of two-time Boston Marathon Champion, Ellison 'Tarzan' Brown. Words will be offered from Robert Peters, a Mashpee Wampanoag artist who contributed his talent to the mural, on behalf of himself, Yatika Fields, and Wings of America Executive Director, Dustin Martin (Dine). Also in attendance will be Jordan Marie Daniel (Kul Wicasa Lakota) who is participating in the 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon and is featured on the banner.

- A prize purse of $96,200 is available for professional athletes in the open, wheelchair, masters, and Para Athletics Divisions.

- Course records for the B.A.A. Half Marathon are:

Open Men: 1:00:34, Lelisa Desisa (Ethiopia), 2013 (Lelisa Desisa is competing in this year’s race, aiming to win his third B.A.A. Half Marathon title)

Open Women: 1:07:40, Brillian Kipkoech (Kenya), 2019

Wheelchair Men: 53:07, Tony Nogueira (New Jersey), 2008 and 2004

Wheelchair Women: 1:00:43, Katrina Gerhard (Massachusetts), 2019.

Lelisa Desisa, Vicoty Chepngeno, Molly Seidel, Molly Huddle Running 2022 BAA Half

The Boston Athletic Association today announced the professional field for the 2022 B.A.A. Half Marathon, presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, to be held on Sunday, November 13.

Two-time Boston Marathon champions Lelisa Desisa and Daniel Romanchuk return, while 2021 Olympic Marathon bronze medalist Molly Seidel and two-time Olympian Molly Huddle lead the American charge. Seven women who’ve run under 1:07:30 and nine men with lifetime bests under 1:01:30 will compete on the roads of Boston.

The B.A.A. Half Marathon will be run for the first time in-person since 2019, beginning and finishing in Boston’s Franklin Park. The event begins at 8:00 a.m. with a field of nearly 9,000 participants. Open registration is already sold out, however entries remain available through presenting sponsor Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund.

Seidel, a former Boston resident, will make her B.A.A. Half Marathon debut as she returns to racing. The 2:24:42 marathoner and former NCAA champion at Notre Dame finished fifth at the 2018 B.A.A. 5K and 10th at the 2019 B.A.A. 10K.

Huddle, a 28-time USA national champion, will race at the B.A.A. Half eight years after placing third in 2014. B.A.A. High Performance team member Erika Kemp –a two-time USA national champion at 20K and 15K— will also compete among the strong American field, fresh off a win at the Boston 10K for Women on October 8.

“The B.A.A. Half Marathon is always a fun fall event, and I’m eager to race again through Boston with hopes of returning to the podium,” said Huddle.

The international women’s contingent is led by 2022 Houston Half Marathon winner Vicoty Chepngeno of Kenya, who owns the fastest lifetime best (1:05:03), though is followed closely by Ethiopia’s Bosena Mulatie (1:05:46). Mulatie was eighth at the 2022 World Athletics Championships 10,000m in Oregon over the summer. Other athletes with world championships experience include Kenya’s Margaret Wangari and Cynthia Limo, and British duo Jess Piasecki and Calli Thackery. Wangari earned a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games Marathon, and placed fifth at the B.A.A. Half Marathon in 2018. Limo is the 2016 World Half Marathon Championships silver medalist.

On the men’s side, Desisa, winner of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and 2015, owns a pair of B.A.A. Half Marathon titles from 2013 and 2014, as well as the event record (1:00:34). The Ethiopian fan favorite is also the event record holder (1:00:34), and considers Boston his second home.

“Boston holds a special place in my heart and I’m excited to return again to race in the B.A.A. Half Marathon, where I have had great success before,” said Desisa. “I hope to run very well again!”

Kenyans Josphat Tanui (59:22) and Shadrack Kimining (59:27) have the two fastest personal bests in the field, which includes five men who have run under one hour for the half marathon. Geoffrey Koech, the 2022 Cardiff Half winner, and Ethiopian Tsegay Kidanu, 11th at the Copenhagen Half Marathon, are competing, as is Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi, the third-place finisher at the 2022 B.A.A. 5K. The top American entrant is Teshome Mekonen, who formerly represented Ethiopia internationally, has run 1:00:02, and won this year’s Brooklyn Half.

Daniel Romanchuk, two-time Boston Marathon wheelchair division champion and 2019 B.A.A. 10K winner, looks to win his first B.A.A. Half title, joined by Boston Marathon top-20 finishers Hermin Garic, Dustin Stallberg and Velera Jacob Allen. Jenna Fesemyer and Yen Hoang, both 2021 Paralympians for Team USA, will race as well. Fesemyer won this year’s B.A.A. 5K.

“I’m very much looking forward to racing the B.A.A. Half Marathon for the first time,” said Romanchuk, who finished runner-up at the Chicago Marathon on October 9. “I’ve raced the Boston Marathon, B.A.A. 5K, and B.A.A. 10K, and am excited to add the Half Marathon. I can’t wait to be back in Boston.”

For the first time, the B.A.A. Half Marathon course will be World Para Athletics certified, eligible for world or national records to be set by Para athletes. Marko Cheseto Lemtukei (T62), Brian Reynolds (T62), and Jacky Hunt-Broersma (T64) each have Boston Marathon Para Athletics Divisions experience and are eligible for prize money.

Emily Sisson sets a new American record in the marathon today in Chicago. clocking 2:18:29!

Three days shy of her 31st birthday and with only one previous marathon on her resume, Emily Sisson took to the streets of Chicago and lowered the American women’s marathon record by 43 seconds, becoming the first American woman to run a marathon in less than 2 hours 19 minutes.

Conditions on the Chicago Marathon’s relatively flat course were ideal, with Sisson — who won the 10,000 at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials last summer — finishing second to Ruth Chepng’etich. The Kenyan repeated as the Chicago champion with a time of 2:14:18, fractions of a second off the world record of 2:14:04 set by Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei in the 2019 Chicago Marathon.

Sisson finished in 2:18:29, taking 43 seconds off the American record set by Keira D’Amatoin January in Houston. Before D’Amato, the record had stood for 16 years; now it has been lowered twice in 10 months, something D’Amato expected.

“There’s a number of American women that are also gunning for that record, so I think if I don’t lower it myself, it’s not going to be mine for very much longer,” she said before the Berlin Marathon two weeks ago. D’Amato, who did not run in Chicago, joined Sisson at the finish line, along with Deena Kastor and Joan Benoit Samuelson — women who held the American record before her.

“It’s amazing,” Sisson said, according to NBC Chicago. “I mean, the women standing here today, they’ve all accomplished so much, so just to be amongst them is an incredible honor.”

Sisson said she wasn’t aware that the record was in reach until very close to the finish line.

Emily Sisson (born October 12, 1991) is a professional runner for New Balance in Phoenix, Arizona. Emily Sisson was 9th at the 2017 London IAAF World Outdoor Track and Field Championships for 10,000 meters, and won the USATF road 10k Championships in 2016 and 5k in 2018. In the 2019 London Marathon, her first try at the distance, she placed 6th in a time of 2:23:08.

In December 2020, she ran the Valencia Half-Marathon in 1:07:26, narrowly missing the American record set by Molly Huddle in Houston on January 14, 2018. Sisson subsequently qualified to compete at the 2020 Olympics in the 10,000 m run, by coming in 1st place at the US Olympic Trials; she finished 10th at the event. On May 7, 2022, clocking in at 1:07:11 she broke the USA woman's half marathon record at the 500Festival Mini-Marathon in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

On October 9, 2022, she broke the American women's marathon record at the 2022 Chicago Marathon, running 2:18:29 to finish 2nd

Deena Kastor completed all sixth World Major Marathons

On Sunday, former American women’s marathon record holder, Denna Kastor, 49, finished the 2022 Berlin Marathon in 2:45:12 to place 48th overall in the women’s field. Kastor earned her sixth star with her results in Berlin, for having finished all six World Major Marathons. She is only the fourth woman to achieve all six world majors, in addition to the Olympic and World Athletics Championships marathons.

Kastor had hopes of hitting the U.S. Olympic Trials standard of 2:37:00in Berlin, but came up short. She finished second in the women’s 45-49 age group.

Kastor has raced the other five majors (Boston, London, Tokyo, Chicago and New York City), and although she was set to race Berlin in 2019, an ankle injury dashed those plans. Kastor is one of the top marathoners in American history, and up until this year, she held the national record at 2:19:36, set at the 2006 London Marathon, which she won. (She won the Chicago Marathon in 2005.)

Keira D’Amato broke Kastor’s record at the Houston Marathon in January 2022, when she ran 2:19:12; some predicted she would run even faster in Berlin on Sunday, but a mere nine weeks after her eighth-place finish at the World Athletics Championships, she was two minutes off the record in Berlin, with a sixth-place finish in 2:21:28.

Kastor also held the American half-marathon record of 1:07:34 until 2018, when Molly Huddle ran 1:07:25. She also won a bronze medal in the marathon at the 2004 Athens Olympics. She ran the Tokyo Marathon in 2019.

Kastor’s goal of completing all six World Majors is a goal held by many marathoners (both amateur and pro) around the world, including the great Eliud Kipchoge, who bested his world record time in the Berlin marathon with a time of 2:01:09.

The former American marathon record holder Deena Kastor is ready to run the only World Major Marathon missing from her resume

Former American marathon record holder Deena Kastor has hinted that she’s planning to race this year’s Berlin Marathon, which would officially complete her six-star World Major Marathon campaign.

She has raced the other five majors (Boston, London, Tokyo, Chicago and New York City), and although she was set to race Berlin in 2019, an ankle injury dashed those plans. She’s back, and ready to tackle the race now, and she will be on the start line in Germany on Sept. 25. 

Kastor is one of the top marathoners in American history, and up until this year, she held the national record at 2:19:36, set at the 2006 London Marathon, which she won. (Keira D’Amato broke Kastor’s record at the Houston Marathon in January 2022, when she ran 2:19:12.) Kastor also owned the American half-marathon record of 1:07:34 until 2018, when Molly Huddle ran 1:07:25.

In addition to her name in the record books, she won many races in her career, including several World Majors. (In addition to London in 2006, she won Chicago in 2005.) She also won a bronze medal in the marathon at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Her most recent World Major Marathon appearance came in 2019, at the Tokyo Marathon.

Kastor won’t be going for the win in Berlin, but she’s had her fair share of time on podiums. Instead, she will be shooting for the final part of her six-star medal, a bucket-list goal shared by many marathoners (both amateur and pro) around the world. 

Emily Sisson breaks the American Women half marathon record

Fifteen years after she won a national junior title in Indianapolis on the track, Emily Sisson returned here to set an American record in the women’s half-marathon on the road.

Sisson finished in 1 hour, 7 minutes, 11 seconds in the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon on Saturday.

The 30-year-old runner broke the American record of 1:07:15 set by Sara Hall on Jan. 16.

Sisson was paced throughout by male runner Brian Harvey, who finished in 1:07:12.

It was the first in-person Mini since 2019 after the annual race was twice canceled during the pandemic.

Hall’s time had broken the American record of 1:07:25 set by Notre Dame graduate Molly Huddle in 2018. Sisson twice nearly bettered that – clocking 1:07:30 in 2019 and 1:07:26 in 2020 – and finally secured the record on a breezy morning with temperatures in the low 50s.

Sisson, an NCAA and Big East champion while representing Providence, won the U.S. Olympic Trials at 10,000 meters last year and finished 10th at Tokyo.

In 2007, she won a USA junior title in the 5,000 meters at IUPUI’s Carroll Stadium, just a few blocks from where the Mini finished at Military Park.

Andrew (Kremer) Pomaranski, a Bishop Chatard graduate, finished second to Sisson in 1:13:12.

Pomaranski, 39, a mother of three who now lives in Michigan, broke a 10-year-old personal best. She was 10th in January’s Houston Marathon in 2:33:35, third-fastest ever by a native Hoosier. While at Miami (Ohio) in college, she set an American junior (under-20) record in the steeplechase.

Multiple U.S. record holder Molly Huddle and partner Kurt Benninger welcome their first baby

On April 26, Olympian and American-record holder Molly Huddle and her husband, Kurt Benninger (who is Canadian), welcomed the birth of their first child, Josephine Valerie Benninger. The couple met during their undergrad years at Notre Dame University in Indiana. 

Huddle’s pregnancy was extremely well documented. Returning to elite competition after pregnancy remains poorly understood, and Huddle wanted to do her part by giving other women a peek behind the curtain. Huddle posted weekly updates to her Instagram, letting her followers know what she’d done for training and how it made her feel.

“Week 31: A lot of track and treadmill. It’s easier to stay flat and I can keep a water bottle nearby. Modifications are the name of the game at this stage. Made some adjustments to the core routine to avoid “the doming” happening on exercises that were fine only a few weeks ago,” she writes. 

Beyond keeping followers up to date with her training, Huddle also provided tips and outlines things that, in retrospect, she wishes she’d done differently. 

This year, Huddle, along with NCAA champion Sara Slattery, co-wrote their first book, How She Did It. The two women wanted to outline their paths from high school to becoming NCAA champions, to Olympic start lines.

Beyond detailing their own stories, they compiled advice from more than 50 female runners, to help demystify the process for the next generation. The book features runners as diverse as Joan Benoit Samuelson and Raevyn Rogers, and shares their insights on the sometimes winding route to success.

Huddle and Benninger relocated from Phoenix, Ariz. to Providence, R.I. in 2021. 

Canada’s Charles Philibert-Thiboutot wins B.A.A. 5K while ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi breaks the course record

The Quebec native ran 13:35 and broke the Canadian 5K road record in the process.

Canada’s Charles Philibert-Thiboutot kicked off the Boston Marathon weekend in style this Saturday, winning the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.) 5K in 13:35. His time took one second off the previous Canadian 5K road record, set by Paul Williams in Carlsbad, California in June 1986.

Philibert-Thiboutot ran a strong race from start to finish, but the win wasn’t handed to him. New Zealand runner Geordie Beamish and Zouhair Talbi of Morroco unleashed a couple of hard kicks in the final metres of the race in an attempt to overtake C.P.T., but fell short to finish second and third, both in 13:36.

“I’m really happy,” he said in an interview with Radio-Canada. “Honestly, it’s not the strongest Canadian record that existed, but it’s still my first Canadian record.”

Ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi breaks course record

The Women’s-only 5K world record-holder, Teferi, broke the tape in the women’s race in 14:49, taking one second off Molly Huddle’s previous course record from 2015. Unlike in the men’s race, Teferi had a commanding lead over the rest of the field, with Weini Kelati, who holds the American women’s-only 10K record, finishing second in 15:04. Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi rounded out the podium in third in 15:16.

World Record Holders, Olympians, National Champions set to Race B.A.A. 5K

The B.A.A. 5K and B.A.A. Invitational Mile will make a triumphant return to Patriots’ Day weekend, with professional fields featuring world record holders, Olympians, Paralympians, national champions, and local standouts. Held on Saturday, April 16, the B.A.A. 5K and B.A.A. Invitational Mile will kick-off festivities leading up to the 126th Boston Marathon on April 18.

“The B.A.A. 5K and B.A.A. Invitational Mile are two events entrenched in the fabric of Boston Marathon weekend, and each features a field which will lead to fast competition,” said Tom Grilk, President and Chief Executive Officer of the B.A.A. “With three years having passed since our last in-person edition of these races, we’re eager to return to the roads to crown champions.”

In the B.A.A. 5K, Ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi will make her Boston road racing debut. A two-time Olympian and two-time World Athletics Championships silver medalist, Teferi holds the women’s-only 5K world record of 14:29. She’ll be up against recently crowned American marathon record holder Keira D’Amato, 2021 U.S. Olympians Emily Sisson and Rachel Schneider, reigning U.S. 5K national champion Weini Kelati, and B.A.A. High Performance Team member Erika Kemp. The B.A.A. 5K course and American record of 14:50 –set by Molly Huddle in 2015—could very well be in jeopardy.

On the men’s side, 2019 B.A.A. 10K champion David Bett and 17-time NCAA champion Edward Cheserek, both of Kenya, will square off against New Zealand 5,000m indoor national record holder Geordie Beamish and 2021 U.S. Olympians Mason Ferlic and Joe Klecker. Stanley Kebenei, a World Athletics Championships finalist in the 3000m steeplechase, will also be part of the strong American charge. The B.A.A. 5K course and American record is 13:20, established by Ben True in 2017.

Boston Marathon wheelchair division champions Marcel Hug, Daniel Romanchuk, and Joshua Cassidy will all compete in the B.A.A. 5K less than 48 hours in advance of racing the 126th Boston Marathon. Vanessa de Souza, Shelly Oxley-Woods, and Jenna Fesemyer are top women’s wheelchair entrants.

Following the B.A.A. 5K, the B.A.A. Invitational Mile will take center stage on Boylston Street. U.S. Olympian, Bostonian, and reigning indoor 1,500m national champion Heather MacLean will race for the first time on the three-lap course that finishes at the Boston Marathon finish line. Among her competitors are B.A.A. High Performance Team member Annie Rodenfels, 2019 runner-up Emily Lipari, and Great Britain Olympian Katie Snowden. MacLean and Rodenfels won’t be the only Massachusetts residents toeing the line, as Belmont High School standout Ellie Shea will race among the professionals. Shea ran 9:08.54 for 3,000m during the indoor season, a time that stands as No. 5 on the all-time high school list and is a Massachusetts state record.

Shane Streich, fresh off an indoor American record at 1,000m, will lead the American men in the B.A.A. Invitational Mile along with 3:54 miler Colby Alexander. Neil Gourley of Great Britain is entered, as are Canadian William Paulson, the 2019 Pan-Am 1500m bronze medalist, B.A.A. racing team member Kevin Kelly of Ireland, and local standout James Randon of Rhode Island.

A complete professional field list for the B.A.A. 5K and B.A.A. Invitational Mile can be found below. Preceding the professional divisions of the B.A.A. Invitational Mile will be a scholastic mile and middle school 1K featuring student-athletes from the eight cities and towns along the Boston Marathon route. Entries for the high school and middle school events will be available on race weekend.

2022 B.A.A. 5K WOMEN’S FIELD (NAME, COUNTRY, ROAD 5K PB, TRACK 5000M PB)

Carmela Cardama-Baez, Spain, N/A, 15:25.41 (NR)

Kim Conley, USA, 15:29, 15:05.20

Keira D’Amato, USA, 15:08, 16:09.86

Emily Durgin, USA, 16:05, 15:24.19

Annie Frisbie, USA, 16:35, 16:05.78

Sammy George, USA, 15:53, 15:19.66

Tori Gerlach, USA, 15:56, 15:44.13

Marielle Hall, USA, 15:08, 15:02.27

Elly Henes, USA, N/A, 15:03.27i

Emma Grace Hurley, USA, 16:13, 15:57.23

Katie Izzo, USA, 16:00, 15:41.33

Weini Kelati, USA, 15:18, 14:58.24

Erika Kemp, USA, 15:45, 15:10.10

Melissa Lodge, USA, N/A, 15:53.81i

Sharon Lokedi, Kenya, 15:48, 15:13.04i

Betty Sigei, Kenya, N/A, 15:37.80

Emily Sisson, USA, 15:38, 14:53.84

Rachel Smith (Schneider), USA, N/A, 14:52.04

Emma Spencer, USA, 16:41, 16:04.95

Susanna Sullivan, USA, 16:35, 15:42.59i

Senbere Teferi, Ethiopia, 14:29 (WR), 14:15.29

Abbey Wheeler, USA, N/A, 15:40.67i

2022 B.A.A. 5K MEN’S FIELD (NAME, COUNTRY, ROAD 5K PB, TRACK 5000M PB)

Eric Avila, USA, 13:55, 13:18.68

Geordie Beamish, New Zealand, N/A, 13:12.53i (NR)

David Bett, Kenya, 13:54, 13:06.06

Ben Blankenship, USA, 13:56, 13:33.07

Robert Brandt, USA, N/A, 13:19.11

Sam Chelanga, USA, 13:43, 13:09.67

Edward Cheserek, Kenya, 13:29, 13:04.44

Adam Clarke, Great Britain, 13:42, 13:39.21

Graham Crawford, USA, 13:54, 13:22.68i

Aaron Dinzeo, USA, 14:25, 13:58.37

Brandon Doughty, USA, N/A, 13:39.06

Mason Ferlic, USA, 13:52, 13:24.94

Sydney Gidabuday, USA, 13:53, 13:22.66

Eric Hamer, USA, 14:43, 13:29.60

Brian Harvey, USA, 14:01, 14:13.93

Stanley Kebenei, USA, 13:53, 13:45.87

Joe Klecker, USA, N/A, 13:06.67

Kasey Knevelbaard, USA, 13:56, 13:24.98i

Lawi Lalang, USA, 13:30, 13:00.95

Matt McClintock, USA, 13:49, 13:47.68

Tim McGowan, USA, 14:11, 13:54.20

Reuben Mosip, Kenya, 13:34, 13:50.80a

Charles Philbert-Thiboutot, Canada, 14:04, 13:22.44

Brian Shrader, USA, 13:57, 13:29.13

Zouhair Talbi, Morocco, N/A, 13:18.17i

Aaron Templeton, USA, 13:48, 13:39.39

Josef Tessema, USA, 14:05, 13:22.28.

Amazing Wins and an Event Record at the 2022 United Airlines NYC Half

The United Airlines NYC Half made a spectacular return to the streets of New York City today as the first major NYRR race back at full scale since the onset of the pandemic.

This year’s event featured the strongest professional athlete field in event history, including 23 Olympians, eight Paralympians, six half-marathon national record holders, and the defending wheelchair division champions. In ideal racing conditions, the pro races played out thrillingly over 13.1 miles of New York City streets.

In the men’s wheelchair division, Daniel Romanchuk of the United States defended his title in a time of 49:22, more than two minutes faster than his winning time from 2019 and four minutes up on the rest of the field today. “I’m really happy to be back in New York racing and see the city so alive,” said Romanchuk a two-time Paralympic medalist and two-time TCS New York City Marathon winner.

 For the women open race,  Senbere Teferi of Ethiopia and Irene Cheptai of Kenya pulled ahead early and ran shoulder to shoulder in Brooklyn, across the Manhattan Bridge, and through Manhattan.

Teferi prevailed in the end, setting an event record of 1:07:35 and breaking Molly Huddle’s record by six seconds. Cheptai was also under the old record in a time of 1:07:37. “I was being very careful throughout the race and watching my pace,” said Teferi through a translator. “I’m very happy to have won.” Her victory is all the more remarkable given that she briefly took a wrong turn in the race’s final 100 meters. Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal of Norway was third in 1:08:07. 

The men’s open division saw 22-year-old Rhonex Kipruto outlast a lead pack of four runners and break the tape in 1:00:30, just over a minute off the event record of 59:24, held by Haile Gebrselassie. Edward Cheserek of Kenya was second in 1:00:37 and Teshome Mekonen of Ethiopia finished third in 1:00:40.

“I feel good because I’ve come back again to win, and my first win was in New York,” said Kipruto, referring to his 2018 victory in the Healthy Kidney 10K in Central Park. “It was not an easy win today because the course was very hilly. It was about the win, not about the time.”

Today’s events also included the return of the Times Square Kids Run at the United Airlines NYC Half for hundreds of youth ages 8–18. 

American record-setter Sara Hall sets sights on NYC Half, says U.S. poised to dominate in 2022

Fleet-footed Sara Hall returns to action at the New York City Half next month having claimed the United States half-marathon record last month ahead of what she sees as a banner year for American athletics.

She set the U.S. record of 1:07:15 in Houston last month, beating Molly Huddle's previous best (2018) by 10 seconds, after finishing on the podium at the 2020 London Marathon and at the Chicago Marathon last year.

Joining her at the marquee New York race are Tokyo bronze medalist Molly Seidel, who finished fourth in the New York City Marathon in November, and 2021 Chicago runner-up Emma Bates.

"It's been awesome to see U.S. female marathoners either getting on the podium or being in contention every time out at the highest level every time," Hall told Reuters.

With all eyes on the U.S. when it hosts the World Athletics Championships for the first time this summer, Hall believes the U.S. could dominate at Eugene, Oregon's Hayward Field.

"USA track and field is strong against so many," said Hall. "Every event, we're in medal contention... it's a really exciting time to be a fan of the sport."

She credits her own recent run of success in part to her husband, Ryan Hall, who began coaching her after he retired from professional athletics in 2016. Whereas "tough love" has been widely embraced in athletics coaching for decades, she says his softer approach has made the difference.

Together, they hold the men's and women's American half-marathon records.

"I've had coaches in the past that were like, 'Oh, you just gave up', you know, like that kind of stuff," said Hall.

"That was really detrimental to me because it really made me believe I wasn't mentally tough. And then when you believe that about yourself, it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Hall hopes hers can be an example in what can be achieved with a method not based in "fear," as conversation about mental health and wellbeing dominates the upper echelons of sport.

"I hope that people are seeing what creates longevity," Hall told Reuters. "That win at all costs, tough love approach, that doesn't create longevity in the sport."

The NYC Half will take place on March 20.

New women American Marathon and Half Marathon records set in Houston

Keira D'Amato just broke the American marathon record after running 2:19:12 at the Houston Marathon today.

Keira D’Amato, a 37-year-old who quit running competitively soon after college, then returned eight years later as a mother of two, broke the American record in the women’s marathon on Sunday.

D’Amato won the Houston Marathon in 2:19:12, taking 24 seconds off Deena Kastor‘s record from the 2006 London Marathon.

D’Amato competed collegiately for American University, then gave up middle-distance running in 2009.

She worked in real estate, got married and had two kids. She started running again to lose baby weight, setting a goal to sign up for a marathon.

D’Amato made it to the 2017 Shamrock Marathon in Virginia Beach, hoping to break three hours, and clocked 3:14:54 in sleet, wind and hail. She kept running and lowered her best time over the next three years.

She was 15th at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, then on Dec. 20, 2020, ran 2:22:56 at the Marathon Project in Arizona to become the eighth-fastest American woman in history.

Now she’s tied as the 22nd-fastest woman in history counting all courses, according to World Athletics.

Also in Houston on Sunday, Sara Hall, a 38-year-old mom, broke the American record in the half marathon, clocking 1:07:15, taking 10 seconds off Molly Huddle‘s record from four years ago.

Additionally, Outstanding marathon debut by @LukeACaldwell today with his 2:11:33 run for 7th place at #houstonmarathon - the fastest marathon debut by a Scot, bettering @callhawk 2:12:17 at Frankfurt in 2015. 

NCAA Cross-Country Distances Still Aren’t the Same for Men and Women. Run Equal Wants to Change That

(A proposal has been submitted to the NCAA to equalize the men’s and women’s cross-country race distances by 2023.)

“I came by the 6K mark and thought, ‘F—, it’s going to be a long day,’” Cooper Teare says of this year’s 10,000-meter NCAA men’s cross-country championships. At the 6K mark, he was still with the leaders, but in the late stages of the race he collapsed from exhaustion, got back up, fell down again, and crawled across the finish line. The fastest collegiate miler of all time finished fourth to last. “The 10K is a different beast,” he says.

For the women, though, the race ends at 6K, where Teare wished it would’ve ended while his competitors surged forward. The fastest miler in the women’s race, Whittni Orton, was ultimately crowned the champion. Two different race distances, frankly, make men’s and women’s cross-country two different sports.

On January 5, Run Equal submitted their first proposal to the NCAA, in which their main demand was that men and women race the same distance in cross-country, across all three divisions, by 2023. In accordance with their petition, which had been circulating online for months, they proposed that everybody race 8,000 meters all season. Equalize the distances, they say. Run equal.

“Requiring women to race shorter distances is gender bias and sends an unmistakable message, intended or not, that women are not as capable as men,” the proposal says.

Molly Peters, the head cross-country coach for men and women at St. Michael’s College, started Run Equal by herself but always knew she wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything substantial alone. “The NCAA isn’t going to take ‘little me’ at my little college seriously,” Peters says.

To gain credibility, Peters assembled a team of pioneers in women’s running who share her view that the distances should be equal. Joan Benoit won the first ever women’s Olympic marathon. Lynn Jennings was a three-time cross-country world champion. Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to ever run the Boston Marathon.

The hope is that when prominent athletes sign and share the petition, it’s like a snowball. “When you get these big names on board, the NCAA will eventually have to answer to them,” Peters says.

Another one of the big names is Molly Huddle, a 10-time NCAA All-American and former American record holder in the 5,000 meters. “I always thought it was kind of weird we didn’t run the same distance, and here we are 20 years later still doing the same thing,” Huddle says. “I think it’s been stuck this way for so long just because we haven’t all really talked about it out in the open all at once.”

From 1928 to 1960, women were prohibited from competing in any event longer than 200 meters at the Olympics because it was thought that the strenuous aerobic activity would harm her ability to bear children. Now it’s commonly understood that the old rationale was wrong; to relegate women to a shorter distance event seems like a blind faith preservation of a tradition based on a misconception, a simple deferment to the status quo that favors an antiquated model.

Kara Goucher, the three-time NCAA champion and double Olympian, concurs. “You don’t see women running 3,000 meters on the track while the men run 5,000,” she says. “Women run the marathon too. They run hundred-milers. They can handle a few extra kilometers in cross-country.”

Goucher says her college coach at the University of Colorado, Mark Wetmore, used to joke, “The men get to enjoy their time for 30 minutes, and you girls only get to enjoy 16 or 17 minutes. They get to be in the spotlight for much longer. That’s not fair.” There’s a truth at the joke’s center: The men’s race is presented as a more serious affair, the main event of the day.

When Goucher won her NCAA cross-country title in 2000, it was the first year the women had ever raced 6K. It had previously been standard for women to race 5K. When the increase in distance first took effect, Goucher says, everybody thought participation among women would drop dramatically, that they wouldn’t be able to field full teams. That didn’t happen. The number of women participating in Division I cross-country steadily increased for the next five years.

While there may be popular support for increasing the women’s race distance, there’s no consensus around what the race distance should be. The proposal submitted to the NCAA calls for 8K for all because Peters and many of her allies see that distance as “a great compromise.” But others disagree.

“I like the 10K at the national championships. It makes it harder,” Goucher says. “But what’s most important is that they’re equal.” Goucher believes there should be a meaningful differentiation between track and cross-country. She says, “They’re different sports, and they should require different types of athletes.”

Huddle offers a different perspective. “Back when I was running I wanted to run 8K, what the guys do all season,” she says.“I’m not so sure about 10K. That’s a daunting distance to jump up to as a freshman—for the men too.”

Peters understands the challenges of organizing an initiative like this and isn’t necessarily worried about the contention. She also spearheaded the movement to equalize the NCAA’s race distances in nordic skiing, which has some similarities with cross-country: both sports are endurance races, and they both traditionally have required women to race a shorter distance than men. Her initiative, which was fittingly called Ski Equal, was mostly successful.

After pressure from Peters and some of the sport’s top athletes, the NCAA Ski Committee opted for an incremental transition to hosting equal distance races between genders. This year, seven of the eight races on the formal circuit were equal in distance. Last year only two were. A few years before that none of them were.

As a sport, cross-country hasn’t yet seen the changes that nordic skiing has, even though the conversation about equalizing race distances isn’t new. There still isn’t a single opportunity for women to race longer than 6K during the NCAA season. But maybe now the time is finally right.

While the USATF cross-country championships have been 10K for both men and women since 2015, other governing bodies are now beginning to make changes to reckon with the implicit messaging behind the history of unequal race distances. European Athletics recently announced that for the first time in 2023 they will lengthen the women’s race distance to match the men’s. Soon the unequal race distances will be unique to the NCAA.

“There’s pressure right now for the NCAA to push for gender equality,” says Peters, referencing the recent Kaplan Reports, which aim to provide a thorough review of gender equality issues in various NCAA championships. The reports followed a TikTok videothat went viral in March showing the dramatic differences between the men’s and women’s practice facilities at last year’s NCAA March Madness basketball tournaments. People are seriously talking about gender equality in sports right now; the window is wide open.

Regardless of the changes that happen in other sports, during the upcoming cross-country season Peters plans to host some women’s 8Ks at her college, where she’s the meet director. Rather than wait for governing bodies to comply with her vision, she’ll model the system she wants to see. “It pains me to host races that aren’t equal,” she says. “I guess it’ll soon be time to put my money where my mouth is.”

2021 NYC Marathon: Weini Kelati, Drew Hunter win Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K

Two-time NCCA champion Weini Kelati smashed the event record at the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line on Saturday in Central Park.Kelati took the tape in 15:18, while indoor champion Drew Hunter won the men's race in 13:53.Kelati, who became a U.S. citizen in June, finished the race on a solo sprint to win her first U.S. title and finished six seconds faster than Molly Huddle's previous event-best mark.She also finished 29 seconds ahead of runner-up Grace Barnett, a U.S. Olympic Trials finalist.It also marked the first U.S. road title for Hunter, who jumped into the lead with about 100 meters to go in Central Park.About 7,000 runners registered for the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K, a sort of warmup to the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday.The 3.1-mile race traverses part of the marathon course, starting near the United Nations Headquarters in Midtown East and ending at the marathon finish line in Central Park.

It was the largest field for an endurance race in New York since the 2019 marathon.It's also a USA Track and Field championship race and the field included five Olympians and 20 championship winners.

The race featured a $60,000 prize purse - the largest of any 5K race in the world.The Kelati and Hunter will each win $1,500 after crossing the finish line first.

National Champions and olympic medalists will Headline 2021 USATF 5K Championships at Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K

The 2021 Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K and USA Track & Field (USATF) 5K Championships on Saturday, November 6, will feature five Olympians and 28 athletes who competed at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials.

The event will take place in Midtown Manhattan the day prior to the TCS New York City Marathon and will be broadcast live on USATF.TV. Abbott will return as the title partner of the event which features a $60,000 prize purse – the largest of any 5K race in the world.

The men’s field will be led by two-time Olympic medalist and eight-time national champion Paul Chelimo and Rio 2016 Olympic gold medalist and seven-time national champion Matthew Centrowitz. Chelimo, who won an Olympic 5,000-meter silver in 2016 and bronze in 2021, won the 2018 USATF 5K Championships in New York in a course-record time of 13:45. They will be challenged by 2021 national champions Eric Avila (mile), Sam Chelanga (10K), and Biya Simbassa (10 mile and 25K).

“I learned a lot in my experience racing in NYC at the Fifth Avenue Mile earlier this fall, but the 5K is my event, and as the course-record holder at the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K the way I see it, all these other guys are coming into my house,” Chelimo said. “I look forward to the challenge and will run my heart out for another USATF 5K title. Go hard or suffer for the rest of your life!”

Two-time NCAA champion Weini Kelati and two-time U.S. champion Erika Kemp will headline the women’s field. They will be joined by Rio 2016 Olympic triathlon gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen, who won the Dash to the Finish Line 5K in 2014, and two-time Olympian and Team New Balance athlete Kim Conley.

“Winning the 10K for Women in Boston earlier this month gave me a huge confidence boost as I get ready for the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K and USATF 5K Championships,” Kelati said. “That I broke Molly Huddle’s event record, who won the USA 5K Championships six times, makes me believe that I can compete against the very best and add my name to that list of national champions. I can’t wait to run my first New York City road race.”

Following in the footsteps of the professional athletes will be more than 7,000 runners participating in the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K, including top local athletes and many runners participating in the marathon the following day.

Abbott, the title sponsor of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, will be the sponsor of the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K for the fifth time. Abbott, a global healthcare company, helps people live fully with life-changing technology and celebrates what’s possible with good health.

The Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K annually provides TCS New York City Marathon supporters, friends and families the opportunity to join in on the thrill of marathon race week. The course begins on Manhattan’s east side by the United Nations, then takes runners along 42nd Street past historic Grand Central Terminal and up the world-famous Avenue of the Americas past Radio City Music Hall. It then passes through the rolling hills of Central Park before finishing at the iconic TCS New York City Marathon finish line.

The Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K and USATF 5K Championships will be broadcast live via USATF.TV. The broadcast is scheduled to begin at 8:20am ET with the first race starting at 8:30am ET.

About New York Road Runners (NYRR)

NYRR’s mission is to help and inspire people through running. Since 1958, New York Road Runners has grown from a local running club to the world’s premier community running organization. NYRR’s commitment to New York City’s five boroughs features races, virtual races, community events, free youth running initiatives and school programs, the NYRR RUNCENTER featuring the New Balance Run Hub, and training resources that provide hundreds of thousands of people each year with the motivation, know-how, and opportunity to Run for Life. NYRR’s premier event, and the largest marathon in the world, is the TCS New York City Marathon. Held annually on the first Sunday in November, the race features a wide population of runners, from the world’s top professional athletes to a vast range of competitive, recreational, and charity runners. To learn more, visit www.nyrr.org.

Previous champions will headline the men's and women's races at the 125th Boston Marathon

It’s official – Boston is back with 20,000 of the world’s best marathoners taking to the start line on Monday, Oct. 11. This year’s field is locked and loaded, for the first-ever fall edition of the marathon.

This race will feature a massive elite field of 140 athletes, headlined by previous champions Lelisa Desisa, Des Linden and Edna Kiplagat plus top American runners Jordan Hasay, Molly Huddle and Abdi Abdirahman.

The women’s race

The women’s race only features two women who have run under 2:20, Mare Dibaba of Ethiopia (2:19:52) and 2017 champion Kiplagat (2:19:50). Kiplagat has raced twice this year at NYRR races, finishing sixth and third. This will be her first marathon since finishing second at Boston in 2019. Dibaba had a DNF in 2019 and was plagued with an injury at the start of the pandemic. This race will mark the return of the 2015 world champion to the marathon distance.

Another athlete to keep your eye on is Kenya’s Angela Tanui, who won the Siena Marathon in Italy earlier this year, running a nine-minute personal best of 2:20:08. Atsede Bayisa of Ethiopia, who is a part of the NN Running Team, is competing as well, after taking four years off competition. Bayisa has two road race victories to her name, which came during her training build-up to Monday’s race. Former 10-mile world record holder Caroline Chepkoech makes her marathon debut, with a half marathon personal best of 1:05:07. Chepkoech has recently changed citizenship from Kenya to Kazakhstan and will be representing her new country at this event. 

Outside of the international favorites, American track fans continue to wait for Hasay’s breakthrough. She has been third at two major marathons and has been agonizingly close to Deena Kastor’s American record, running the second-fastest time by an American (2:20:57 at Chicago 2017). Since then Hasay has changed coaches, from the controversial Alberto Salazar to former marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe, when the Nike Oregon Project disbanded due to Salazar’s investigation. Linden was the last American to win the Boston Marathon, in 2018, and will be running Boston for her seventh time. She enters the race with a PB of 2:22:38.

Toronto’s Brittany Moran is the only elite Canadian in the women’s field, coming in with a personal best of 2:36:22. Moran won Toronto’s Yorkville 5K in mid-September in a time of 16:40.  

The men’s race

The men’s race is loaded, having eight men who have run under 2:06. It is headlined by two-time Boston champion, Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa. Desisa is one of the best marathoners in the world in recent years, having won the event twice in 2013 and 2015, and finishing second in 2016 and 2019. Desisa will be challenged by his countrymen Asefa Mengstu (2:04:06) and Lemi Berhanu (2:04:33). Berhanu beat Desisa to get on the 2016 Ethiopian Olympic team, but has only finished one of his last five marathons, which was a second-place finish at Toronto’s Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in 2019.

Kenya’s Benson Kipruto (2:05:13) and Wilson Chebet (2:05:27) are two experienced racers in the field who can wear down opponents over the Newton hills. Kipruto won the 2018 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon. 2012 Olympian Dylan Wykes is the top-seeded Canadian in the field, with a personal best of 2:10:47. The last time Wykes competed in a marathon was at the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon in 2019, where he placed 30th. Rory Linkletter from Alberta will compete in his first Boston Marathon, and will look to follow in the footsteps of his U.S. Hoka NAZ Elite training partner Scott Fauble, to run under 2:10 at this race. Linkletter ran his marathon personal best of  2:12:54 at the Marathon Project in 2020. Thomas Toth (2:16:28) of Ontario is the other Canadian in the men’s elite field. 44-year-old American runner Abdirahman will be on the start line as the top U.S. athlete, only 64 days after he competed in the Tokyo Olympic marathon.

The 2021 Boston Marathon will mark the first time the race will take place on the same day as a Boston Red Sox playoff game. The Red Sox will play Game 4 of the ALDS series at Fenway Park on Monday evening. The weather is calling for 17 to 20 degrees C in the morning, with only a 20 per cent chance of precipitation. 

How to watch the 2021 Boston Marathon

Live coverage of the event will begin at 8 a.m. ET, with the men’s and women’s wheelchair races setting off at 8:02 and 8:04 a.m. ET. The elite female runners will begin at 8:32 a.m., followed by the men at 9:00 a.m. ET.

Live race coverage will be broadcasted on NBC Sports Network for cable subscribers from 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. ET. If you are looking for an online stream of the race, it will be on RunnerSpace, where you can sign up to follow all the action.

Cuffe runs away from the field in 43rd Freihofer’s Run for Women

The only reason Aisling Cuffe didn’t get lonely during the 43rd Freihofer’s Run for Women 5k on Saturday is that the race course doubles back on itself.

As she turned right off Sprague Place onto Washington Avenue just before the 4k mark, she allowed herself a smile as she was greeted warmly by a long line of walkers headed in the other direction, having just passed the 1k mark.

By the time the 28-year-old Cuffe passed Henry Johnson Boulevard a long city block later, no runner had appeared turning the corner on Sprague, and that was that. Cuffe polished off the downhill on Washington to the finish and won the Freihofer’s Run in 16:34, a whopping 40 seconds ahead of runner-up Cara Sherman.

A two-time New York State high school champion in cross country for Cornwall Central in 2009 and 2010 who went on to run for Stanford University, Cuffe has raced pretty much everywhere in the state except for the Capital Region, and she made her Freihofer’s Run debut a smashing success by putting the field away early.

“I have a tendency to not start fast enough, so by a half-mile in, I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t think I’m starting fast enough for the pace I want to do,’” she said. “Normally I rely on the field to drag it out of me, and I didn’t feel like the field was doing that, so I thought, ‘I’m going to have to go.’

“And I was super-nervous somebody was going to come back and start kicking it in, so I kept looking and probably shouldn’t have been looking as much as I did.”

The Freihofer’s Run usually is held in early June, but was moved to September for this edition after being contested as a virtual race last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A total of 1,024 runners finished the in-person 5k in comfortably cool, sunny conditions on Saturday, after a thick fog lifted an hour or so before the 9 a.m. start.

The clear conditions didn’t help the elite field find Cuffe, as she got 10 meters of separation by Lark Street a half-mile in and pretty much put the race away with a 5:32 first mile shortly after entering Washington Park.

Cuffe ran the second mile in 5:27 for a 10:59 split and spent as much time watching her step through the rolling hills and twisting turns in the park as anything else.

“It got quieter all of a sudden when I started pushing, and I thought, ‘Oh, did I make a gap already?’” she said. “You can tell sometimes how many people are around you just by hearing, but it wasn’t what I thought. So I was like, ‘What?’ And it thinned out so much … ‘Wow. OK.’ I kept having to press at that point.

“I fell asleep a little bit in the second mile, but that’s also where the course is at its hilliest, so it’s tough to say. But I do think I fell asleep a little in that middle mile. When I’m a little more relaxed, I start looking at potholes a lot more and getting a little picky about my steps.”

“I thought about it [making a push to close the gap], but I was already pressing a little bit early, so I figured I should stay within myself and be patient,” Sherman said.

A two-time runner-up in the 5,000 meters at the NCAA Championships while at Stanford, Cuffe has been training for longer distances this year and said she felt “a little rusty at the 5k distance.”

Besides winning two cross country state meets for Cornwall, she also won the state Federation meet and Foot Locker National Championship in 2010.

At Stanford, she was coached by former Section II star Liz Maloy of Holy Names, who hosted Cuffe at her Loudonville home this weekend. Among their shared memories is having run in the state meet, where runners compete in t-shirts color-coded to their section.

“We used to get cotton t-shirts at the state meet, so she had maroon, and I had royal blue, and we were talking about running one of your biggest meets in high school in a cotton t-shirt. We love that,” Cuffe said.

“Oh, my God, they’re my favorite t-shirts. I can’t wear them too much because they’re starting to wear a little thin, so I have to preserve them for my children and grandchildren.”

Sherman, who has run in the colors of Mohonasen High School and the University at Albany, wanted to use the Freihofer’s Run as a stepping-stone to the MVP Stockade-athon 15k, another popular road race that will return to in-person competition on Nov. 14.

The 2019 Stockade-athon winner completed the Freihofer’s Run 10 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Annika Sisson.

“I was a little surprised to finish so far up, but I hit the time I was shooting for. I thought I’d be around 17:15,” Sherman said. “I’m training for the Stockade-athon right now, so I was using this as my first test effort, sort of. So I just wanted to see where I was at.”

It wasn’t long ago that Sisson was running in the Capital Region, as she was second to another former UAlbany standout, Hannah Reinhardt, at the 2018 America East Conference cross country championship meet, while Sisson was at Stony Brook.

“My coach Kurt Benninger, Molly Huddle’s husband, he knew of this race and thought it would be a good opportunity to test my fitness, see where we’re at heading into the fall,” Sisson said. “And it was great, I had so much fun. I knew Aisling was coming in, so that was fun. We were like, we’re probably going to have to let her go.”

Sascha Scott of Syracuse won the masters division while finishing 10th overall in 18:17.

Under a reconfigured prize structure that offered a deeper distribution, Cuffe earned $3,000 for the victory.

She said she especially appreciated the women-only race, though, for some of its other touches, like running into the walkers on the way back and the fact that race director Kristen Hislop announced to the field before the start that the age range in the race ran from 9 to 93.

“I love races like this, especially when you get to see other people in the race doing it as well,” she said. “Even at the start, when Kristen was announcing the race and the oldest person and the youngest. I love that stuff, I could listen to that all day long, the number of people that come out and share in the sport of running and racing having fun together. It’s so motivating and inspiring.”

TOP 50

1. Aisling Cuffe (28, Concord, Mass.), 16:34; 2. Cara Sherman (24, Schenectady), 17:14; 3. Annika Sisson (25, Pawtucket, R.I.), 17:24; 4. Caitie Meyer (30, Albany), 17:34; 5. Kerry Allen (33, Washington, D.C.), 17:39; 6. Karen Bertasso Hughes (37, Selkirk), 17:42; 7. Tricia Longo (31, Waterford), 17:50; 8. Sarah Danner (28, Gowanda), 17:57; 9. Elizabeth Debole (36, Albany), 18:02; 10. Sascha Scott (46, Syracuse), 18:17.

11. Suzie Clinchy (32, Brooklyn), 18:26; 12. Nicole Moslander (34, Rotterdam), 18:28; 13. Abbi Wright (24, Delmar), 18:31; 14. Leonni Griffin (14, Watervliet), 18:37; 15. Meghan Mortensen (36, Glenville), 18:50; 16. Marisa Sutera Strange (58, Millbrook), 18:56; 17. Renee Tolan (46, Clifton Park), 18:57; 18. Laura Kline (44, Syracuse), 18:59; 19. Erin Lopez (40, Ivoryton, Conn.), 19:01; 20. Kaleigh Higgins (15, Watervliet), 19:08.

21. Gina Pardi (23, Falmouth, Me.), 19:21; 22. Charlotte Dunkel (14, Latham), 19:43; 23. Kaitlyn Phillips (24, Rome), 19:51; 24. Brina Seguine (32, Rensselaer), 20:00; 25. Ciara Bullington (17, Cohoes), 20:02; 26. Lauren Scarupa (30, Clifton Park), 20:03; 27. Marta Dauphinee (43, Glenville), 20:13; 28. Kirsten McMichael (24, Clifton Park), 20:13; 29. Diana Tobon-Knobloch (40, Schenectady), 20:26; 30. Birtu Diefenderfer (16, Albany), 20:33.

31. Kaitlin Bogucki (14, Rensselaer), 20:31; 32. Jennifer Richardson (41, Albany), 20:48; 33. Sarah Harris (46, Sunderland, Vt.), 20:50; 34. Elizabeth Koa (15, Watervliet), 20:53; 35. Katie Johnson (40, Delmar), 20:55; 36. Lilla Korniss (16, Watervliet), 21:00; 37. Aroline Hanson (41, Sunderland, Vt.), 21:03; 38. Alyssa Caiano (14, Cohoes), 21:04; 39. Lori Kingsley (55, Wysox, Pa.), 21:03; 40. Julianne McCarthy (39, Albany), 21:06.

41. Anne Benson (56, Clifton Park), 21:08; 42. Natalie Bennett (16, Latham), 21:10; 43. Alyssa Risko (55, Schenectady), 21:14; 44. Rebecca Miceli (24, Troy), 21:15; 45. Colleen Brackett (60, Albany), 21:17; 46. Katherine Durrant (47, Ithaca), 21:17; 47. Shannon Church (40, Watervliet), 21:19; 48. Kim Lagasse (27, North Attleboro, Mass.), 21:25; 49. Lauren Williams (31, Troy), 21:32; 50. Judy Guzzo (54, Niskayuna), 21:34.

It is Going to Be a Busy 7 Weeks With All 6 World Marathon Majors Taking Place

For the first time ever, all six World Marathon Majors will be contested in the fall of the same year. Due to postponements caused by COVID-19, the Berlin, London, Tokyo, Chicago, Boston, and New York City marathons are all scheduled to take place within a seven-week timeframe.

For many athletes, these marathons will be their first 26.2 since the onset of the pandemic, and they’ve set big goals for the return of the sport.

Between runners doubling in events to some chasing national records, the best marathoners in the world are taking full advantage of these highly anticipated competitive opportunities. Here, we outlined some quick takeaways and storylines we’ll be watching based on the early elite field announcements. (And we’ll keep this list updated if and when top runners throw their name into one of these amazing fields!)


Berlin Marathon—Sunday, September 26

MEN:

Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia (2:01:41)

Right now, the only elite runner confirmed for the Berlin Marathon is Kenenisa Bekele. Berlin will be the first of two marathons in 42 days for the Ethiopian runner, who is also scheduled to race the New York City Marathon on November 7, a grueling double that will mark Bekele’s first races since March 2020.

As three-time Olympic champion told Sports Illustrated, he is ready for the challenge.

“For a whole year, I couldn’t race and it’s been really difficult for athletes,” Bekele said. “I want to take this chance and see what is possible.”

London Marathon—Sunday, October 3

Eight weeks after winning silver at the Tokyo Olympics, Brigid Kosgei aims to defend her title in London. The world record-holder from Kenya will be going for her third consecutive victory in London against a stacked field that includes defending New York City Marathon champion Joyciline Jepkosgei and two-time Tokyo Marathon winner Birhane Dibaba.

On the men’s side, Shura Kitata will also be looking to defend his title in London after a disappointing performance in Tokyo. The Ethiopian standout struggled in the heat during the Olympic marathon in Sapporo and dropped out of the race, but he’s aiming for redemption on a course where he experienced a breakthrough last year.

“I was disappointed to have to pull out of the Olympic Games Marathon, but I just did not adapt to the weather well,” Kitata told World Athletics. “It was very cold in Ethiopia prior to leaving for Tokyo and when we got there the weather took its toll on my body and made my breathing very hard. But I’m healthy and looking forward to racing in the Virgin Money London Marathon again. I am preparing very well and my coach has me very ready to defend my title in London.”

Chicago Marathon—Sunday, October 10

Almost a year after she nearly broke Deena Kastor’s American marathon record, Sara Hall is gearing up to again chase the elusive time set 15 years ago. In Chicago, Hall aims to continue her breakthrough streak, which started during the 2020 COVID-adjusted season, and run under the record of 2:19:36.

“It has been too long since I’ve been back, and when I thought about where I wanted to chase the American record, I thought it would be more exciting to do it at home, in the U.S., and Chicago is such an epic race,” Hall said in a statement. “I’m really excited to have my best marathon yet on U.S. soil.”

After dropping out of the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials, Hall made an impressive comeback with a runner-up finish at the London Marathon last October, and a victory at the Marathon Project in December. Hall’s winning time of 2:20:32 is her personal best and the second-fastest performance ever by an American woman.

Hall will have stiff competition up front with Ruth Chepngetich in the field. The Kenyan marathoner set the half marathon world record in April. She had an off day at the Tokyo Games and dropped out of the marathon around the 20-mile mark. Chicago will be the 2019 world champion’s first major marathon since the Olympics and her first race on U.S. soil.

Another American to watch will be Keira D’Amato; she made headlines in 2020 with huge improvements on the track and the roads, which helped her land her first professional contract with Nike at 36 years old. D’Amato was expected to be an Olympic team contender in the 10,000 meters, but she withdrew from the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, citing a hamstring injury. The Chicago Marathon will be D’Amato’s first race since February.

Galen Rupp, who placed eighth in 2:11:41 at the Tokyo Olympics on August 8, is returning to race the marathon in Chicago. This marathon holds some significance for Rupp, who became the first American male athlete since Khalid Khannouchi to win the race in 2017. The last time he competed in the Windy City was during his comeback to the sport after having Achilles surgery. In the 2019 race, he dropped out just before the 23-mile mark, but he’s looking to improve this time around.

“My goal is winning,” Rupp said in a statement. “I want to come back and win. 2019 left a sour taste in my mouth. I didn’t finish that race so I cannot wait to get back out there and come back stronger than ever. It has been a wild ride since then. I’m healthy, I’m happy, and it’s going to be tremendous to come back.”

Boston Marathon—Monday, October 11

Boston will have one of the deepest elite fields on the women’s side with nine women who have run under 2:22, including Olympic bronze medalist Mare Dibaba and 2017 Boston Marathon winner Edna Kiplagat.

The race will also be Des Linden’s first of two marathons this fall. The 2018 Boston Marathon champion is entered in the New York City Marathon on November 7, a shorter than normal timeframe between major marathons. Boston will be Linden’s first major marathon since she finished fourth at the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials. This spring, Linden set the 50K world record by averaging 5:47 pace for more than 31 miles.

Fellow Americans Jordan Hasay and Molly Huddle will also be returning to Boston after the event took a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
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In the men’s field, several past podium finishers are making their return to Boston, including Kenyan standouts Wilson Chebet, Felix Kandie, and Paul Lonyangata. A large American contingent will be led by four-time Olympian Abdi Abdirahman, who finished 41st in the marathon at the Tokyo Games. Including Abdirahman, eight of the top 12 finishers from the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials are scheduled to compete.

New York City Marathon—Sunday, November 7

The field assembled for the women’s race, especially the American contingent, is the most stacked marathon of all the fall races. Tokyo Olympians Molly Seidel, Sally Kipyego, and Aliphine Tuliamuk are all slated to return to competition in the Big Apple after representing Team USA in Sapporo.

Fellow podium finisher Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya is also returning to the distance after dominating the marathon to win gold in her first Olympic Games. She has the fastest personal best among the field after running 2:17:16 in Valencia last year. Including Jepchirchir, the New York City field includes four women who have run under 2:21.

Outside of the Olympic team, a handful of the top Americans are also gearing up for fast times in the city. Emily Sisson, Kellyn Taylor, Stephanie Bruce, Roberta Groner, and Laura Thweatt are scheduled to compete. And Des Linden will be racing her second marathon of the fall after competing in Boston on October 11.

Along with Bekele’s double, Abdi Nageeye’s performance will draw fans in to watch the men’s race in New York City. The runner from the Netherlands secured a silver medal in the Tokyo marathon by crossing the finish line in 2:09:58, a huge improvement from his 11th-place finish in Rio. He’s finished in the top 10 twice at the Boston Marathon, but this fall will mark his debut in New York City and he’s feeling confident in his chances.

“For me, winning the silver medal in the Olympic Games was not a surprise,” Nageeye said in a statement. “There were many good athletes in the race, but I knew my preparation had been good. I was ready for the conditions, and most importantly I believed in myself. I will take that same focus into my preparations for New York, and my belief and confidence in my abilities is even higher than it was in Sapporo. There is nothing I want more than to bring a New York City victory back home along with my Olympic medal.”

There will also be a couple of highly anticipated marathon debuts, including Kibiwott Kandie and Ben True. Kandie is the half marathon world record-holder and a world championships silver-medalist. True will be aiming for redemption after finishing fourth in the 10,000 meters and narrowly missing out on making Team USA at the Olympic Trials in June.

SARA HALL RUNS FASTEST HALF MARATHON BY AMERICAN THIS YEAR, MISSES RECORD ATTEMPT

Hall clocks 68:44 in return to Cottage Grove as part of buildup for Chicago Marathon in October, now boasts three career-sub 69 performances

Sara Hall has produced two of the strongest half marathon performances in U.S. history during the past 13 months in Cottage Grove, Ore., but just like last year, Saturday’s effort along the Row River bike path came up short of her pursuit of the American record.

Hall, representing ASICS, clocked 68 minutes, 44 seconds, after she ascended to the No. 6 all-time U.S. competitor last year by running 68:18 along the Harms Park boat ramp parking lot in Cottage Grove.

Hall, who became the fastest American and No. 19 performer in the world this year, now has three career marks under 69 minutes. She also ran 68:58 at the Houston Half Marathon last year.

Molly Huddle still holds the record of 67:25 from the 2018 Houston Half Marathon.

Hall, 38, joined Shalane Flanagan, Jordan Hasay, Emily Sisson and Huddle as the only American women with at least three career sub-69 performances on record-eligible courses.

Hall used Saturday’s opportunity as part of her preparation for the Chicago Marathon, scheduled for Oct. 10.

Hall, who ran the second-fastest performance by a U.S. female with her 2:20:32 effort in December at the Marathon Project in Chandler, Ariz., will be again taking aim at the 2006 American record of 2:19:36 held by Deena Kastor.

B.A.A. Announces Participants In John Hancock Professional Athlete Team For Boston Marathon

The Boston Athletic Association announced on Wednesday that more than 140 athletes will participate as part of the John Hancock Professional Athlete Team in the 125th Boston Marathon on Oct. 11.

Included in that field are eight of the top 12 finishers in the Olympic trials marathon, including Abdi Abdirahman, Scott Fauble, Matt McDonald, and Jonas Hampton. Elsewhere in the men’s open field, Kenya’s Leonard Barsoton and Ethiopia’s Jemal Yimer will both make their long awaited marathon debuts in Boston. Dejene Debela and Asefa Mengstu will be making their Boston debuts.

For the women, five of the top seven finishers from the 2019 Boston Marathon will return: Edna Kiplagat (Kenya), Jordan Hasay (USA), Des Linden (USA), Caroline Rotich (Kenya), and Mary Ngugi (Kenya). Two-time Olympian and Providence resident Molly Huddle will also be running.

The women’s wheelchair race will include Team USA wheelchair Paralympians Susannah Scaroni and Jenna Fesemyer, along with course record holder Manuela Schär and five-time champion Tatyana McFadden. For the men’s wheelchair division, Aaron Pike will compete in the field that includes four champions – Daniel Romanchuk, Marcel Hug, Ernst van Dyk, and Josh Cassidy – with a combined 16 Boston Marathon titles.

As part of the inaugural Para Athletics Divisions at the Boston Marathon, many athletes will compete for prize money and awards within the vision impaired and lower-limb impaired divisions. Among those competing are 2016 Paralympians Chaz Davis (T12), Liz Willis (T64), and marathon silver medalist and current world record holder Misato Michishita (T12) of Japan. Davis, a Massachusetts native, holds the T12 American record of 2:31:48 for the marathon, while Willis is a converted sprinter-turned-distance runner for Team USA. Also competing is Marko Cheseto Lemtukei, the world best holder for the T62 marathon having run 2:37:23 in 2019. The Boston Marathon is the first major marathon to offer prize money and awards for athletes with vision, lower-limb, and upper-limb impairments.

“In October, many of the world’s best athletes will look to etch their names in the history books by winning the 125th Boston Marathon,” said Tom Grilk, B.A.A. President and Chief Executive Officer. “We very much look forward to October’s competition, bringing together winners from more than one hundred global marathons. The B.A.A. is eager to continue the tradition of athletic excellence as we return to the roads leading to Boston.”

“John Hancock is proud to support this year’s professional field for the monumental, 125th running of the Boston Marathon,” said Kate Ardini, Chief Marketing Officer at John Hancock. “In our 36th year as principal sponsor, John Hancock is committed to supporting the world’s top athletes as they aim for greatness in Boston. We look forward to cheering on every athlete as they make their way to the finish.”

Emily Sisson’s 7 Secrets for Nailing a Tough Race—Like the 10,000 Meters at the Olympic Trials

The 10,000 meters at the Trials was run in unprecedented heat. Here’s how she kept her head in it.

A disappointing DNF in her last major race. Temperatures so hot that race organizers moved the competition nine hours earlier than planned. And a training partner and mentor who was unexpectedly absent.

None of this shook pro runner Emily Sisson at her third U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials. On Saturday, the 29-year-old went to the front of the pack five laps into the women’s 10,000 meters—and never let up. Not only did she claim victory and secure her first spot on an Olympic team, her time of 31:03.82 was a new Trials record.

In her post-race comments, Sisson offered a master class in mental preparation for difficult efforts. Here are seven lessons you can take on how to steel your mind for hard work ahead, even if you don’t have an Olympic berth on the line.

1. Grieve your defeats—then let them go.

In 2019 and early 2020, Sisson was “all in” on making the Olympic team in the marathon, she said. So after dropping out of the Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta at mile 22, she felt heartbroken and confused.

Though she typically excels at moving on from bad races, Sisson struggled a bit more than usual. She allowed herself some extra time to feel disappointed—then, with emotional support from her husband, Shane Quinn, and physical assistance from her chiropractor, John Ball, she began pulling herself forward toward the next big goal, the 10,000 meters.

“No matter what my previous performance was—whether I had a really good run or a really poor one—I always kind of look forward and work hard for whatever the next thing is,” she said.

2. Break the race down into parts.

Rounding the oval for 25 laps in the 10,000 meters can be mind-numbing even in optimal conditions. In the 85-degree heat of Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday, it had the potential to feel downright brutal.

To stay mentally engaged rather than overwhelmed, Sisson and her coach Ray Treacy devised a race plan involving several segments. She focused on hitting the halfway point in 15:50—keeping it steady at 76 to 77 seconds per lap—then picking up the pace slightly until five laps to go. Then, it was all about pushing harder until she crossed the line.

In fact, she was so focused on this strategy that she was somewhat surprised when she saw her speedy finishing time. “I was just focused on the section of the race I was in,” she said, “and wasn’t thinking overall of a certain time.”

This “chunking” concept can work in a marathon, too, says Justin Ross, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist in Denver who specializes in athlete mental health and performance. For instance, think of the first 10 miles as the warm-up, the middle 10 as cruising, and the last 6.2 as the race to the finish.

3. Draw on your past successes—and others’.

Forget Netflix or HBO Max—during her buildup, Sisson would frequently watch race videos. These include her own past performances, such as her personal best 30:49.57 in the 10,000 meters at the 2019 Stanford Invitational.

“Sometimes it’s just seeing something you've done before and reminding yourself, ‘Oh, yeah, my legs know how to do this,’” she said. “It sounds kind of cocky, but it’s for me, it’s helpful.”

Also in her queue: races won by two-time Olympian and American record holder Molly Huddle, who scratched from the Trials on June 14. Watching championship races where Huddle has taken the lead from the front, and then won, inspired Sisson and brought feelings of connection to her longtime training partner.

“I like looking at them; I am a very visual person,” she said. “I’ve watched and re-watched videos of her running, and running away from the field. Having her as a mentor has been huge for me.”

You might not have any of your own race videos at the ready, but “we all have the ability to draw upon our past successes, both in and out of sport,” Ross said.

He recommends using your training log as your own personal power journal. “With each day’s training, write down areas when you executed mental toughness and how you were able to get through difficult runs,” he said. Reviewing these notes prerace will ward off the doubt and anxiety that can often creep in last-minute.

4. Reshape your narrative.

Recalling those victories of the past can shift you away from negative thought patterns. You can also recruit someone who knows you well as a runner—for instance, a coach or a training partner—to reinforce the message.

During the final phase of her preparations, Sisson traveled from Arizona back to Providence, Rhode Island, to see Treacy in person. These sessions improved her confidence as well as her fitness. “He knows how I think, and he knows to challenge the stories I have about myself in my head,” she said.

“I was telling him something along the lines of, ‘Oh, I can't outkick certain people.’ And he’s like, ‘That’s not true,’” she said. “He brought up a race that I did in college where I outkicked someone and ran a 65-second last lap.”

Because she trusts him and knows “he’s a realist,” his assessment wards off her moments of self-doubt. “If he says, ‘You’re capable of doing this,’ I know that’s what I’m capable of doing,” she said.

5. Add to your toolbox.

In addition to reinforcing her past strengths, Treacy also assigned her workouts to build the exact skills she’d need to hone her finishing speed. “We actually practiced running a lot of faster 400s,” she said.

In addition, she ran three 5Ks in her buildup, in which she consciously focused on picking up her speed in the last two kilometers. “Even when I was tired, I knew with 2K to go: all right, time to go,” she said. “I think that was great practice.”

6. Remember: It’s tough for everybody.

Living in Phoenix likely gave Sisson an advantage in the heat, even though she did her recent training this year in cooler Flagstaff and Providence. Still, she channeled the memory of tough workouts in scorching temps—and implemented the adjustments to her routine they required, such as trading hot coffee for caffeinated gum or a shot of espresso prerace.

At tough spots during the competition, she honed in on those advantages rather than dwell on the bad conditions. “Even when it felt really hot, I kept telling myself: ‘I know, you’re feeling the heat. But so is everyone else,’” she said.

7. View obstacles as opportunities

When 41 women toe the line on a scorching day, not everyone will be able to keep up with the lead pack. In fact, Sisson lapped many talented runners—all but six others in the field—en route to her victory.

Though she—along with second-place finisher Karissa Schweizer and Alicia Monson, who finished third—had to weave a bit as the race wore on, Sisson didn’t view these competitors as a hindrance to her progress.

In fact, she was grateful the race was condensed to one section instead of two, as proposed by USATF in late May. That way, even as a front-runner, she had competitors to key off of. “It kind of gives me something to eye in front of me and reel in,” she said. “They helped me.”

Emily Sisson Secures First US Title & Olympic Berth with a 10K Masterpiece

EUGENE, Ore. — The spirit of Molly Huddle lives on. Last week, Huddle announced her withdrawal from the 2020 US Olympic Trials, her 36-year-old body no longer able to generate the speed or smoothness that had carried her to five straight US 10,000-meter titles and an American record. But on a sunny Saturday morning at Hayward Field (82 degrees in Eugene at start), Emily Sisson delivered a run her erstwhile training partner would have been proud of, methodically squeezing the life out of the women’s 10,000-meter field to win in a meet-record of 31:03.82 despite 86-degree temperatures.

Actually, we know Huddle was proud of the effort

A Huddle comparison is selling Sisson short, however. This was dominance at a level we are unaccustomed to seeing at an Olympic Trials, particularly in an event in which 13 women in the field entered with the 31:30 Olympic standard. Only seven Americans (including Sisson) have ever run faster than her 31:03.82 today, achieved in the morning sun and without the aid of pacemakers. Her 12.70-second margin of victory left her almost a full straightaway clear of runner-up Karissa Schweizer.

Sisson had sealed the victory by building a 30-meter lead with three laps to go and would only pick it up from there, going 71.47-71.25-69.26 to close out a 15:14.67 final 5k and 4:44.45 final 1600. Schweizer took second in 31:16.52 to make the Olympic team at a second distance (she also made it in the 5k on Monday), while Alicia Monson gave On Athletics Club another Olympian by taking third in 31:18.55.

The top five women in this race will all be running in Tokyo — the top three in the 10k and fourth- and fifth-placers Elise Cranny and Rachel Schneider in the 5k.

Sisson lapped everyone in the field save for the top seven. The last person she lapped — in the final 100 meters — was none other than 2016 Olympian and 2015 world championship bronze medallist Emily Infeld, who stuck with the lead pack for 6k.

The Race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsYzi04MOQ4&feature=emb_title

The race had been shifted to a 10 a.m. start to avoid the hot weather (forecast to reach 100 degrees when this race would have originally been run at 6:44 p.m.), though the conditions were still hot and sunny when the gun was fired. Sisson took the lead just before two kilometers, dropping the pace from 78’s and 78’s to consistent 75’s, whittling the pack to 10 by 5k (15:49.15). Sisson would continue tightening the noose all the way home. She dropped the pace to 74’s just after halfway, which was enough to drop former New Mexico teammates and new US citizens Weini Kelati and Ednah Kurgat, as well as 2016 Olympian Infeld by four miles.

By 6800, Schneider, Hall, and 2012 Trials runner-up Natosha Rogers had been dropped as well, leaving a four-woman battle for three spots between Sisson, Cranny, Schweizer and Monson. After running consistent 74’s, Sisson let a 75 slip in for her 18th lap. From there, however, Sisson’s pacing was masterful: each of her final seven laps was faster than the one that preceded it. A 72.58 fifth-to-last lap gave her a 10-meter gap with a mile to go, and with 41 starters, it became hard to keep up with who was where as Sisson had been lapping multiple runners per lap. She would press on to win in dominant fashion, while Schweizer, who trailed Monson by 3.5 seconds at the bell, would use a big last lap (68.81, fastest in the field) to take second, with Monson safe in third, over 16 seconds up on Schweizer.

For the record, Schweizer said she plans on running both the 5k and 10k in Tokyo.

Quick Take: Total masterclass

Sisson has had some great performances in her career (she’s made two Worlds teams at 10k, won two USA road titles, and won two NCAA titles), but she had never had one like this.

Not only did she make her first Olympic team and win her first USATF track title, she put on a wonderful performance. She took the lead after the mile and never gave it up. She started clipping off 75-second laps (5:00/mile) through halfway. That whittled the lead pack down to 10. Then she upped the ante again, lowering the pace to roughly 74s through 8k. That made it a four-woman race for the three Olympic spots. Then she started running 72s or better and it was game over.

Quick Take: Redemption for Sisson, who used the extra year to her advantage

When we spoke to Sisson a month ago, she admitted that had the Trials been held as scheduled in 2020, she likely would not have been in contention to make the team. Her body felt broken after dropping out of the Olympic Marathon Trials on a brutal Atlanta course, and after a stellar 2:23 debut in London in 2019, she struggled to make sense of the result.

“Usually I’m good at moving on from bad races, but I struggled with that one,” Sisson.

It didn’t help that, after COVID postponed the Trials, there was nothing to move on to.

But eventually, Sisson was able to get back on track (she praised her husband, her former Providence College teammate Shane Quinn, for his support) and work back to incredible fitness. In December, she ran 67:26 to miss Huddle’s American record in the half marathon by one second, and she looked strong in her three track 5k’s this spring, running 14:55, 14:53, and 14:59. She had never broken 15 minutes prior to this year. Her plan today was to play to her strength and make it a fast race, as she knew she was in the best shape of her life.

“There were some workouts where I had to ask [my coach Ray Treacy] to repeat my splits, like what did I just run?” Sisson said.

QT: Alicia Monson pushed her body to the brink (and to the hospital) to make her first Olympic team

The newly-formed On Athletics Club (editor’s note: On Sponsored the Road to the Trials on LetsRun.com) got its second 10k Olympian at the Trials as Alicia Monson finished 3rd to make the team, joining teammate Joe Klecker who was 3rd in the men’s 10k on the first night of the Trials.

Coach Dathan Ritzenhein had been very bullish on Monson heading into the Trials, but how would she perform on the biggest stage and in the heat? Superbly well. While Monson was overtaken by Karissa Schweizer on the final lap, she was the last athlete to get broken by Sisson.

However, the effort really took its toll.

After the race, Monson did not look well. She eventually was resting in the shade in the bowels of the stadium, and was brought back out for an interview by NBC’s Lewis Johnson, where Schweizer helped support her. Monson said in the interview, “I have never gone to that point in a race before and I’ve always kind of wanted to. I think today was a good time to do that.”

Monson was able to go to the victory stand and do the award ceremony for the top 3, but the heat was still taking its toll.

Later as first reported by Sarah Lorge Butler, it was revealed that Monson collapsed after the medal ceremony and started vomiting and was taken to the hospital.

Ritzenhein told LetsRun he believes Monson will be okay, adding “she is just the toughest person I’ve ever met.” For anyone who remembers Ritzenhein’s all-out racing style, that is high praise indeed. Ritz even said she’d be available for an interview after she left the hospital. That definitely is a LetsRun.com first.

Quick Take: Sisson & Monson’s all-in bets pay off

When USATF switched the schedule to put the women’s 10k after the women’s 5k, athletes who qualified in both had a choice to make. If you thought your best shot to make the team was in the 10k, would you double — and perhaps wear yourself out with a heat and final in the 5k — or give yourself only one shot to make the team and focus on the 10k?

Both Sisson and Monson (and their coaches) felt their best shot was in the 10k and both decided to skip the 5k entirely. That paid off when both made the team today.

But both Schweizer and Cranny decided to attempt the double, and that decision worked out nicely for them as well, as Schweizer made the team in both events and Cranny was the US champ in the 5k. All four women are first-time Olympians.

Quick Take: Sara Hall’s Olympic dream is denied yet again, but she achieved her career-best Olympic Trials finish in 6th

Some great US runners over the years have failed to make an Olympic team. Chris Solinsky, the #2 US man ever at 5,000 and 10,000, never made an Olympic team, and Sara Hall, the 2nd-fastest US women’s marathoner ever at 2:20:32, may also end up with that label. Hall, 38, finished 6th in today’s race in 31:54.50, which was a career-best finish for her at the Olympic Trials.

Sara Hall at the Olympic Trials

2004 – 11th in 5000

2008 – 9th in 1500

2012 – 8th in steeple

2016 – DNF in marathon, 14th in 5000

2020 – DNF in marathon, 6th in 10,000

“I made all the right moves I needed to, I just didn’t have it. You know, those girls are really strong,” said Hall after the race. “Sisson, I’m really happy for her… I’m so happy she made the team, she’s so deserving… I respect all those women so much… I thought I had a shot at this team but at the same time that’s my highest Olympic Trials finish… I’m thankful I was able to do that today.”

Hall said she was rooting for her fellow marathoner Sisson — the US’s 8th fastest marathoner in history at 2:23:08 — to make the team.

“Emily’s run was so impressive, I didn’t doubt that she could do this… living in Phoenix, I’m pretty sure we’re all gonna wish we were living in Phoenix like she is… I was rooting for her so much because of the disappointment in Atlanta that was similar to mine,” said Hall, who said she’ll be announcing a fall marathon soon.

Saying Hall won’t make the team in 2024 may not be wise. The date for the 2024 marathon trials isn’t set yet, but they might be less than 2.5 years away and Hall is running better than ever. Bernard Lagat made an Olympic team at 41 in 2016. Hall will be 40 when the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials take place. Of course, the difference is Lagat had been on many teams before.

Regardless of whether she makes a team, Hall’s late-career transformation has been incredible. At the 2016 Trials, Hall had pbs of 32:44 for 10k and 2:30:06 for the marathon. Now her pbs are 31:21 and 2:20:32.

Quick Take: Sisson handled the heat like a pro

At the last Trials, Sisson said she was “pretty out of shape and I actually overheated.” She handled the heat with ease today. That may be because she lives in Phoenix, Arizona (although she hasn’t been there since March, spending her buildup in Flagstaff and then Providence).

She wore sunglasses during the race but they weren’t hers. She often runs with glasses in Phoenix but didn’t have any today, so she just borrowed her husband’s pair before the race.

Quick Take: Emily Durgin has a strong run in 9th

The top 8 spots were all filled by people with the Olympic standard of 31:25. The first person without the standard was 9th placer Emily Durgin of Under Armour. No one in today’s race ran a PB, but Durgin came the closest. When her collegiate career at UConn came to an end in 2017, she had pbs of 16:00.93/33:49. Now she’s improved them to 15:24/32:22 and she ran 32:25 for 9th.

Molly Seidel, Molly Huddle, Des Linden, Edna Kiplagat and Sara Hall, to Headline Mastercard New York Mini 10K on June 12

The 2021 Mastercard New York Mini 10K, the world’s original women-only road race, will feature the return of professional athletes to NYRR races for the first time since 2019. The all-star lineup on Saturday, June 12 will include U.S. Olympians Molly Seidel, Molly Huddle and Des Linden and past Mini 10K champions Sara Hall, Edna Kiplagat (and Huddle) in the open division, and two-time defending champion Susannah Scaroni and five-time TCS New York City Marathon champion Tatyana McFadden in the wheelchair division.

Seidel was the runner-up at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, running 2:27:31 in her first-ever marathon to secure a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. She finished in sixth place at the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon and is also a four-time NCAA champion. This will mark her third race appearance in New York; she won the 2017 NYRR Midnight Run and finished as runner-up at the 2017 USATF 5 km Championships.

“Although it’s my first time running the Mini, I’m well-aware of the race’s significance as the first-ever road race just for women,” Seidel said. “I’m excited that this is another step forward in returning to mass-participation and elite running, especially in a place as important to road racing as New York City. Personally, this race is a great opportunity to come down from the mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona, and test my legs as I prepare for the Olympic Games marathon in August.”

Linden won the Boston Marathon in 2018 and is a two-time U.S. Olympian in the distance, and she just missed out on a third Olympic Games appearance after placing fourth at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials last year. To kick off 2021, she ran a 2:59:54 in the 50K, a new world best for the distance.

Huddle is a two-time Olympian, having run the 5,000 meters at the London 2012 Games and setting the 10,000-meter American record at the Rio 2016 Games. In New York, she won the 2014 Mini 10K and is a three-time champion of the United Airlines NYC Half. She made her marathon debut at the 2016 TCS New York City Marathon, taking third place as the top American.

Hall, whose participation was announced last month, won the event in 2019 in 32:27 in a race that doubled as the USATF 10 km Championships. She has eight national titles to her name and was runner-up (2:22:01) at the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon last October and then in December clocked the second-fastest marathon ever by an American woman (2:20:32) at The Marathon Project in Chandler, Ariz.

Kiplagat has a storied history in New York, having won her New York City Marathon debut in 2010 and followed that with a second-place finish in the 2011 NYC Half and a victory in the 2012 Mini 10K. Outside of New York, she has won the World Championships Marathon in 2011 and 2013, the London Marathon in 2012, and the Boston Marathon in 2017.

“I am excited to return to the Mini 10K for the fifth time,” Kiplagat said. “It is a special feeling to stand on that starting line and feel the support of not only the women running with you, but all of the women who came before you. It is a very special race and I’m happy to be going back to New York City.”

In Central Park, they will be challenged by a number of athletes competing in the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials later in June, including Laura Thweatt, Emma Bates, Lindsay Flanagan, Maggie Montoya and Emily Durgin. 

The event will also feature a professional wheelchair division for the third time, making it the only all-women professional wheelchair race in the world. U.S. Paralympian Scaroni is the two-time defending champion in the wheelchair division, having raced world-best 10K times in both of her victories, including a 22:22 in 2019. She followed that performance by setting an American best in the marathon of 1:30:42 to win the 2019 Grandma’s Marathon, and then took third place at the TCS New York City Marathon that fall. Scaroni will once again line up against five-time New York City Marathon champion and 17-time Paralympic medalist McFadden, who is in search of her first Mini 10K title.

“The Mini 10K always means so much to me because the feeling of being on that line surrounded by so many women reminds me of how big of a celebration road racing is for the human spirit,” Scaroni said. “This year raises even more emotions – the opportunity to again unite with one another highlights the beauty of road racing and its ability to continuously bring us together through adversity.”

 To mitigate the risk of spread of COVID-19, the professional athletes taking part will be in a controlled environment. The field will be required to provide proof of a full vaccination series or negative COVID-19 test before traveling to New York and will undergo daily COVID-19 testing and tracing while in New York for the race. There will be a separation of the pro field and general field at the start, no guests will be allowed to accompany the athletes, and they will be required to wear masks at the start and finish areas. Additionally, there will be an elimination of touchpoints, including no large gatherings or in-person meetings until race morning.

Aliphine Tuliamuk has signed with Gatorade

Ten-time USA Track and Field national champion and winner of the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials, Aliphine Tuliamuk, announced Friday that she has signed with Gatorade as she heads toward the Tokyo Olympics. She will join other notable athletes on the company’s endurance roster, including multiple American record holder Molly Huddle and Canadian triathlete Lionel Sanders.

Tuliamuk has had a whirlwind of a year, starting with her win at the U.S. Olympic Marathon trials on Feb. 29, 2020. Just under a year later, on January 13, 2021, she and her partner welcomed their first child. Now, the NAZ Elite runner is preparing to compete in the Olympic Marathon, a mere six months after giving birth.

“I’m so excited to announce that I’m a new member of the Gatorade Endurance family!” says Tuliamuk. “Over the past 12 years Gatorade is a brand I’ve trusted to fuel my body, and when I started running long distance, I fell in love with the Gatorade Endurance products. I look forward to sharing how the gels and chews are helping me perform at my best by providing critical fluids and nutrients while training for the summer games.”

Jeff Kearny, the company’s head of global sports marketing, calls Tuliamuk a “perfect partner” as a national champion and a mother, and describes her as an inspiration, particularly for women. Since she has already been using Gatorade’s endurance products for years, she also has an authentic tie to the brand.

As the Olympics draw near, running fans everywhere will be eagerly awaiting to see how Tuliamuk fares on race day, and will no doubt be cheering her on.

Will There Be Fans at the Hayward Field Olympic Trials? After 2020, holding the event at all will be a victory in itself

Compared to other pandemic-inspired dystopias, the rise of the avatar sports fan wasn’t horrible, so much as mildly depressing. The NBA’s Disneyland bubble (and recent All-Star game) had “virtual bleachers” where viewers could glimpse their spectral selves on screen. Then there was the strange analog equivalent where people paid $100 for the privilege of attending the Super Bowl as a cardboard cutout. In an era of increasing atomization, these images felt like a vision of a nightmare future where yet another in-person communal experience had been phased out. Last March, when asked about the prospect of competing in an empty arena, LeBron James’s initial response was, essentially, forget it. “If I show up to an arena and there ain’t no fans in there, I ain’t playing,” he said.

For track and field athletes, on the other hand, one could make the obvious joke that competing without spectators—as many runners did last year—would be business as usual. But even as having vacant seats at major championships remains a recurring issue for the sport, there are still places where, in pre-pandemic times, one could reliably find an infectious mass enthusiasm for watching fit people chase each other around the oval. In the United States, the most obvious example is, of course, Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, which is slated to host its fourth consecutive Olympic Trials in June. The venue’s combination of historical significance and high-energy fan base have always given it a special aura, colloquially referred to as the “Hayward Magic.” Even for those who don’t buy into the idea that occult forces might be wafting through the air of the Pacific Northwest, the quadrennial spectacle of the Trials at Hayward has delivered some big-time moments—starting in 1972 when Steve Prefontaine broke the American record in the 5,000-meters to punch his ticket to his first, and only, Olympic Games.

“This is a very special place for people who are really passionate about running,” says Eugene resident and two-time Olympic Trials champion Nick Symmonds. At the 2008 Trials, Symmonds was the first finisher in the famous “Oregon sweep” of the men’s 800-meters, where all podium spots were claimed by Eugene-based runners—to the roaring delight of the home crowd. While some have argued that it would be “better for the sport,” if U.S. track and field were less Oregon-centric, there’s no question that Hayward’s reputation for track fanaticism is justified. “At Hayward, you can have 10,000 people watching an early-season college dual meet,” Symmonds told me. According to a 2018 survey by the University of Oregon Foundation, the average attendance for weekday and weekend track meets at Hayward over the previous five years was 6,146 and 6,259 spectators, respectively. Those are impressive numbers for U.S. track and field. Symmonds told me that, as a professional, he had raced in national championships at other big venues across the country, like Des Moines and Sacramento, and likened the experience to competing in a “ghost town.” As he put it, “There was no one in the stands there to watch other than mom and dad.”

Unfortunately, the lingering reality of the pandemic might mean that even the Hayward Field Olympic Trials are destined for ghost town status. With fewer than 100 days to go (the Trials are scheduled to take place June 18th through 27th), it’s still uncertain whether spectators will be allowed to attend. COVID infection rates might be dropping as vaccines become more widely available, but the likelihood of packed stands by early summer seems remote.

“We are certainly hopeful that we will have fans at the Olympic Trials, but we are far from certain that that is going to be the case,” Michael Reilly, the CEO of TrackTown USA, the local organizing committee for the Trials, told me. Reilly generously pointed out that infection rates in Oregon had been “increasingly good.” Although the state is not yet allowing spectators at sporting events, Reilly said that his team was working with co-organizers like the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Track and Field to apply for an exemption to submit to the governor’s office.

For now, the idea is to plan for a scenario in which fans will be allowed to attend with appropriate safety measures—testing, masks, social distancing, etc. (Reilly told me that it was still too soon to say whether the vaccine could play a role in any safety protocols.) “We are building operating plans that anticipate that spectators will be at the Trials,” Reilly told me. “If, for whatever reason, we can’t have fans, we will be prepared to go either way. Fortunately, many of the operations of the event, as it relates to conducting a track and field competition, really don’t depend on whether there are spectators.”

In a tantalizing irony, Hayward last year completed an extensive renovation that more than doubled its max seating capacity to 25,000. (The permanent seating capacity for the new facility is listed at 12,650, but it can be expanded to accommodate larger crowds.) The project, which is estimated to have cost around $270 million, transformed a relatively quaint facility into an opulent mega-stadium that includes a ten-story tower, a “hydrotherapy room,” and an on-site barbershop.

So far, the only athletes who have gotten to experience this architectural epiphany are members of the University of Oregon’s track and field team, leading Eugene’s Register Guard to posit that Hayward 2.0 is currently “little more than the most spectacular collegiate training facility in the nation.” As the paper reports, the university is hoping to host outdoor track meets later in the spring, culminating in the NCAA Outdoor Championships, which are scheduled to take place the weekend before the Trials.

Should both of these events end up happening without any spectators there’s still the silver lining that, hey, at least they weren’t canceled. And while it might be tempting to assume that all athletes prefer to race in front of a packed house, that, of course, isn’t necessarily the case. Molly Huddle, who won the women’s 5,000 and 10,000-meters at the 2016 Trials and will be looking to make her third Olympic team this June, told me that the first time she competed at a Hayward Trials in 2008, she was so stimulated by the crowd energy that she ended up running poorly. She says she had to consciously “de-sensitize” at subsequent Trials in order to run well enough to make the team. “It will probably not feel like Hayward, because of the new stadium and because there are no knowledgeable, dedicated fans there like there always are,” Huddle says about the prospect of competing at a spectator-less Trials. “Usually, I just try and pretend it’s just a mid-season meet to take the pressure off. So it will be easier to do that.”

Meanwhile, the organizing committee for the Tokyo Games has yet to decide on whether overseas fans will be allowed to attend. (According to a press release from the International Olympic Committee, a decision is expected in the coming weeks.) To be honest, it’s hard to imagine that there will actually be a ban on international visitors—not least because the Japanese government and the city of Tokyo reportedly spent more than $1.25 billion on the new Japan National Stadium—but, if 2020 has taught us anything, it’s to never say never.

Molly Seidel Racing A Special Edition Of The Atlanta Half-Marathon On The Atlanta Motor Speedway February 28

Gripping the steering wheel of her Audi Allroad while driving on an Arizona highway three days ago, Molly Seidel spoke breezily on her cell phone about what it’s like to go fast.  Seidel, whose stunning second place finish at the USA Olympic Team Trials nearly a year ago in Atlanta catapulted her into the national spotlight, enjoys both running and driving fast.

“This thing goes fast,” she said of her car.  “I’m a bit of a leadfoot.”

Seidel, 26, will be returning to Atlanta on February 28, where she will run a special edition of the Atlanta Half-Marathon which will be held at the sprawling Atlanta Motor Speedway, partly on the facility’s 1.5-mile race track.  The race, part of Atlanta’s Marathon Weekend organized by the Atlanta Track Club, was moved from the streets of the city a year ago to the racetrack grounds in order to offer athletes of all abilities a COVID-safe, in-person running competition.  Seidel said she’s never actually run on a racetrack, but she’s very excited by the concept.

“When the race opportunity came up in Atlanta we immediately jumped on that,” Seidel told Race Results Weekly.  She added: “I’ve had a lot of exposure to race tracks because my dad and my brother race cars semi-professionally.  It’s super cool to watch.  I love it.”

Speed is what Seidel will be after in Atlanta.  She’ll be using this event as part of her build-up to the Olympic Marathon in Sapporo on August 7, and thinks it fits perfectly into the training plan she and coach Jon Green have devised.  She is trying to use as productively as possible the extra year of preparation time she’s been given by the pandemic in advance of the Tokyo Olympics.

“Basically being in kind of a unique position of having already secured the spot several months out we, my coach Jon and I, got to plan backwards a little bit,” Seidel said.  “A big part of that is try to, like, get in a combination of strength and speed that I need for Sapporo.  For me I really wanted to be able to focus on the half-marathon a little bit more just because… doing stuff on the roads gets me a little bit more excited than doing stuff on the track.  The half-marathon is a distance that I haven’t been able to deeply explore yet.  It’s been fun getting to learn that distance a little bit better.”

It’s hard to believe that Seidel only ran her first half-marathon on October 26, 2019, at the low-key Cape Cod Half-Marathon in Massachusetts.  Facing no competition, she clocked 1:14:10 and finished ahead of the next woman finisher by more than eight and a half minutes. Some five weeks later, she ran her first serious half off of full training, winning the Humana Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio & Half-Marathon in a very elite 1:10:27, bettering Shalane Flanagan’s course record by 22 seconds.  That performance was pivotal because it qualified her for the Olympic Trials where she made her marathon debut.

Since then, Seidel has lowered her half-marathon best to 1:09:20, a mark she set in a “micro race” outside of Las Vegas last month which only had 37 finishers.  For that event, called the Las Vegas Gold Half-Marathon, Seidel said that she went into it with no set goals and just tried to have fun.

“It felt great,” she said of the race which was only for elite athletes.  “Really my coach just told me, don’t look at the watch.  Just go out, hop between groups of guys as they come back to you, but have fun with it.  That’s really what it was.  It was just a chance to bust a run, trying to get back into the swing of things, try out the new shoes.  Yeah, it was a good day.”

The “new shoes” were her Puma racing shoes, the first time she wore them in competition after announcing she had switched sponsors from Saucony to Puma last month.  She’s excited by that transition, and got very comfortable with her new competition footwear by wearing them extensively in training.

“Everybody at Puma, from the first time I went in to meet with them to now when I’m working with them in an official capacity, has been just awesome,” said Seidel whose cell phone signal cut out a few times as she drove through a forest.  “That was one of the reasons I wanted to go with them, like, really game for some awesome ideas.  It’s really a lot of innovation going on and a really cool attitude.  It’s been very fun.  It’s been a really good transition.  I’ve been enjoying it immensely. Even more so getting to wear, frankly, a really great pair of racing shoes, not only training in them but racing in them, exploring new things that I can do.”

As good as her performance was in the Las Vegas race, Seidel was quick to point out that it did not represent a full effort off of dedicated preparation.  The Atlanta race will be different. She wants to see what she can do after putting everything into it, like a race car driver bringing out a new car with a newly tuned engine.

“The Vegas one we just kind of trained through that,” she explained.  “We just used that as a workout.  This one we’ll go into it with a full-on race mentality, taper a little bit that week.”

While Seidel wouldn’t offer a specific time goal, the Atlanta Track Club has recruited two male pace makers to shepherd her through the two-loop, record-eligible course at a sub-1:09 pace.  Depending on how she feels, it is always possible that the American record could enter her mind.  The USA record is 1:07:25 by Molly Huddle set in Houston in 2018.  Only four American women have run sub-1:08 on a record-quality course: Huddle, Emily Sisson (1:07:30), Deena Kastor (1:07:34), and Jordan Hasay (1:07:55).  (Kara Goucher also ran 1:06:57 at the slightly downhill Great North Run in England in 2007).

“Road racing is just exciting to me in a way that track racing is not,” Seidel admitted.  “Not that track racing isn’t exciting, but it’s just a different style of running.  It’s much more similar to cross country in college, rather than that exacting nature of hitting your exact paces every lap on the track.  I think I love the competition and… the fact that it will be different every time.  I personally find that road racing lights my soul on fire more.”

Of the other 16 elite women entered in the race at least two, Eilish McColgan of Scotland and Natosha Rogers of Rochester Hills, Mich., could challenge Seidel.  McColgan, the 2018 European Championships silver medalist at 5000m, will be making her half-marathon debut.  She has covered the distance before, unofficially, working as a pacemaker at the 2020 Virgin Money London Marathon last October where she went through halfway in 1:12:26.  She was supposed to run the super-fast RAK Half-Marathon in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates, but that race was recently cancelled due to the pandemic.  Rogers, now part of the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project, was the USA half-marathon champion in 2017 where she set a personal best of 1:10:45.  Seven women in the field have run sub-1:14.

Motor racing may excite Seidel, but she won’t be driving her father’s race car any time soon.  She’s 5′-4″ (163cm), and the driver’s seat is permanently set for his six-foot height.

“I’d love to but, frankly, I’m not tall enough,” she said with a laugh.  “It’s very set for their specific heights.  So, I’d need to wear stilted shoes, or something.  I do enjoy driving very much.  I’m definitely not the fastest in my family, though.”

Emily Sisson Comes Up 1-Second Short of American Half Marathon Record in Valencia

America’s Emily Sisson nearly set a record of her own. The 29-year-old Team New Balance star who ran for Providence College had targeted Molly Huddle’s absolute American record of 1:07:25, but fell achingly short by just one second.

“Definitely bittersweet,” Sisson told Race Results Weekly via text message just after exiting drug testing in Valencia this morning. “Was disappointed to fall short of my goal but trying to keep things in perspective.”

Sisson went out at slightly over American record pace, splitting 10-kilometers in 32:02 (1:07:35 pace). Maintaining that tempo, she ran 16:02 for the next 5-K, but picked it up in the final quarter of the race. With the wind at her back, from 15-K to 20-K, she ran a 15:58, putting her on 67:33 pace at 20k, then did everything she could to shave seconds in the final 1097 meters. Sprinting down the light blue carpet on the finish straight in the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, she stopped the clock at 1:07:26.

“Being able to race again was incredible and the Valencia did a wonderful job putting on this event,” she said.

This is the second time that Sisson has come close to Huddle’s record. In Houston in January, 2019, she clocked 1:07:30 at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon. She is now the only American woman to have run 1:07:30 or better twice during a career.

Sisson has every reason to be optimistic about next year. She already has her Tokyo Olympic 10,000m qualifying mark of 30:49.57 set at Stanford University in 2019, and finished second, fourth, and third, respectively, in the last three USATF 10,000m Championship races. She had dropped out of the Olympic Trials Marathon last February after running with the leaders through the first half of the race.

“I’m glad I could end 2020 with a solid performance,” Sisson concluded. “Looking forward to building off this heading into the new Olympic year.”

American Record Alert: Emily Sisson Targeting Molly Huddle’s 67:25 AR at Sunday’s Valencia Half Marathon

At times, the 2020 track & field season has felt like one giant record chase. With the vast majority of major championships cancelled, athletes have shifted their targets from medals to times. And with the ability to focus on one race with the sole goal of running as fast as possible, records have tumbled around the globe. Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei took down Kenenisa Bekele‘s 16-year-old 5,000-meter world record in August. In the span of one hour in October, Letesenbet Gidey broke Tirunesh Dibaba‘s 5,000-meter world record and Cheptegei fully erased Bekele from the outdoor record books by breaking his 10,000m mark. Domestically, Shelby Houlihan chopped over 10 seconds off her American 5,000-meter record back in July, taking it down to 14:23.92.

The latest installment of the Great Record Chase of 2020 comes on Sunday in Valencia, where distance studs Rhonex Kipruto, Jacob Kiplimo, and Gidey will have the half marathon world records in their sights. Just a few minutes back, Emily Sisson — one of the few Americans making the trip to Spain (Jordan Hasay is also entered in the marathon) — will be shooting for a mark of her own: the 67:25 American half marathon record, currently held by her friend and occasional training partner Molly Huddle.

says Ray Treacy, who coaches both Sisson and Huddle. “That’s the goal and see how she feels the last 5k…We’re just hoping for the best and she gets her reward for all the hard work she’s done over the last four or five months, because this is her only race.”

Sisson hasn’t raced since dropping out of the US Olympic Marathon Trials in February, though she did run the virtual New York City Marathon in 2:38:00 in October (Treacy says the aim was merely to get in a good long run effort, adding that it felt “easy” for Sisson and that she recovered “immediately”). Considering her goal is to make the Olympic team at 10,000 meters next year, Treacy did not want Sisson to run another marathon this fall, making the half marathon a natural distance for a target race. And with USATF opting not to send a team to the World Half Marathon Championships, Valencia was the best option.

Treacy says Sisson’s fitness is “really, really good” at the moment, with the 29-year-old clocking 24:37 recently for a five-mile time trial and averaging 5:05 pace for a 4 x 2-mile workout — well under American record pace (AR paceis 5:09). Currently, Sisson sits #2 on the all-time US list thanks to her 67:30 in Houston last year.

There are a couple of potential stumbling blocks, however. First, Sisson may not have any company during the race. The top women will be aiming to run the world record (64:31) or close to it, which is beyond Sisson’s abilities. Though there are two other women — Kenyans Brenda Jepleting (67:07) and Sheila Chepkirui (67:37) — with personal bests close to Sisson, it’s unclear whether they’ll try to run with her or opt for the more aggressive pace up front.

Treacy believes Sisson should be able to handle that situation just fine, though. She was alone for most of the second half of her marathon debut in London in 2019 and came out with a stellar 2:23:08 personal best.

“She’s pretty good at doing that anyway, so I’m not worried about it,” Treacy says.

The larger concern is the weather. The high of 58 degrees in Valencia on Sunday is fine, but the projected winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour could prove problematic.

While Sisson still has several years of her prime remaining, record opportunities like this are precious. Under Treacy, Huddle only raced one half marathon per year from 2015 to 2020, and three of those came on a relatively tough course in New York. Even when Huddle did finally set the record in Houston in 2018, she wasn’t 100% as she had gotten sick a few days earlier.

“[Huddle] never had the opportunity to run really, really fast,” Treacy says. “Certainly when Molly was in the shape she was in Rio, (where she ran an American 10,000m record of 30:13 at the 2016 Olympics), I think she could have run 66:30, 66:40.”

Sisson will get her shot on Sunday. Can she give the Great Record Chase of 2020 a fitting send-off?

Emily Sisson will be targeting Molly Huddle’s 67:25 AR at Sunday’s Valencia Half Marathon

At times, the 2020 track & field season has felt like one giant record chase. With the vast majority of major championships cancelled, athletes have shifted their targets from medals to times. And with the ability to focus on one race with the sole goal of running as fast as possible, records have tumbled around the globe. Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei took down Kenenisa Bekele‘s 16-year-old 5,000-meter world record in August. In the span of one hour in October, Letesenbet Gidey broke Tirunesh Dibaba‘s 5,000-meter world record and Cheptegei fully erased Bekele from the outdoor record books by breaking his 10,000m mark. Domestically, Shelby Houlihan chopped over 10 seconds off her American 5,000-meter record back in July, taking it down to 14:23.92.

The latest installment of the Great Record Chase of 2020 comes on Sunday in Valencia, where distance studs Rhonex Kipruto, Jacob Kiplimo, and Gidey will have the half marathon world records in their sights. Just a few minutes back, Emily Sisson — one of the few Americans making the trip to Spain (Jordan Hasay is also entered in the marathon) — will be shooting for a mark of her own: the 67:25 American half marathon record, currently held by her friend and occasional training partner Molly Huddle.

says Ray Treacy, who coaches both Sisson and Huddle. “That’s the goal and see how she feels the last 5k…We’re just hoping for the best and she gets her reward for all the hard work she’s done over the last four or five months, because this is her only race.”

Sisson hasn’t raced since dropping out of the US Olympic Marathon Trials in February, though she did run the virtual New York City Marathon in 2:38:00 in October (Treacy says the aim was merely to get in a good long run effort, adding that it felt “easy” for Sisson and that she recovered “immediately”). Considering her goal is to make the Olympic team at 10,000 meters next year, Treacy did not want Sisson to run another marathon this fall, making the half marathon a natural distance for a target race. And with USATF opting not to send a team to the World Half Marathon Championships, Valencia was the best option.

Treacy says Sisson’s fitness is “really, really good” at the moment, with the 29-year-old clocking 24:37 recently for a five-mile time trial and averaging 5:05 pace for a 4 x 2-mile workout — well under American record pace (AR paceis 5:09). Currently, Sisson sits #2 on the all-time US list thanks to her 67:30 in Houston last year.

There are a couple of potential stumbling blocks, however. First, Sisson may not have any company during the race. The top women will be aiming to run the world record (64:31) or close to it, which is beyond Sisson’s abilities. Though there are two other women — Kenyans Brenda Jepleting (67:07) and Sheila Chepkirui (67:37) — with personal bests close to Sisson, it’s unclear whether they’ll try to run with her or opt for the more aggressive pace up front.

Treacy believes Sisson should be able to handle that situation just fine, though. She was alone for most of the second half of her marathon debut in London in 2019 and came out with a stellar 2:23:08 personal best.

“She’s pretty good at doing that anyway, so I’m not worried about it,” Treacy says.

The larger concern is the weather. The high of 58 degrees in Valencia on Sunday is fine, but the projected winds of 15 to 25 miles per hour could prove problematic.

While Sisson still has several years of her prime remaining, record opportunities like this are precious. Under Treacy, Huddle only raced one half marathon per year from 2015 to 2020, and three of those came on a relatively tough course in New York. Even when Huddle did finally set the record in Houston in 2018, she wasn’t 100% as she had gotten sick a few days earlier.

“[Huddle] never had the opportunity to run really, really fast,” Treacy says. “Certainly when Molly was in the shape she was in Rio, (where she ran an American 10,000m record of 30:13 at the 2016 Olympics), I think she could have run 66:30, 66:40.”

Keira D’Amato destroys American women’s-only 10 mile record

Keira D’Amato‘s magical year of running continued this morning when she smashed the American record for 10 miles in an all-women’s competition at the specially-arranged Up Dawg Ten Miler in Washington, D.C.  Running on a multi-loop, certified course in Anacostia Park and against a backdrop of still-vibrant fall foliage, D’Amato soloed to a 51:23 finish time, smashing Janet Bawcom‘s record of 52:12 set at the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile in April, 2014.

“I didn’t really have anything prepared to say,” said a tearful D’Amato to the small crowd of officials, volunteers, family members and media gathered at the race finish line.  She continued: “Thank you to all the volunteers and everyone for coming out and helping.  I actually really don’t know what else to say.”

D’Amato, 36, attacked the record from the start.  She needed to average 5:13 per mile, and hit the first mile in 5:10.  She had already separated herself from the four other women who were competing, including 2020 USA Olympic Trials Marathon runner-up Molly Seidel.  She held a level pace through 4 miles (20:40), but picked it up with a 5:05 fifth mile.

Although the weather was clear and windless for the 8:00 a.m. start, temperatures were cold (the limited group of officials and spectators wore winter clothes).  Nonetheless, D’Amato threw off her headband in the fifth mile, and her arm warmers in the seventh reflecting how hard she was working.  She clocked 5:03 for mile six and 5:07 for mile seven, building a good cushion on the record.

About 48 minutes into the race, D’Amato got a stitch on her right side.  She could be seen on the broadcast rubbing her ribs next to her bib number, and raising her right arm to lift her rib cage, a common technique to relieve stitch pain.  Although her final mile was her slowest (about 5:23), the record was never in doubt.

While D’Amato’s mark fell short of the absolute (mixed-gender) American record of 50:52 set by Molly Huddle en route at the 2018 Aramco Houston Half-Marathon, it was remarkably close given the fact that she did not have the benefit of any runners near her to help with the pace or to create a draft.  She ran the entire course today with only the lead cyclists for company.

Today’s record was only one of several great performances by D’Amato this pandemic year, a full-time realtor from Midlothian, Virginia, who does not have a kit sponsor.  Before the pandemic in January and February she ran personal bests for the half-marathon and the marathon of 1:10:01 and 2:34:24, respectively, but really began to shine over the summer.  She clocked 32:33.44 for 10,000m on the track in July, blasted a 1:08:57 solo half-marathon in October, and a lonely 15:08 road 5-K (course not certified) earlier this month.  She used all of these performances, she said, to tune-up for today’s race which she helped fund out of her own pocket.

Keira D’Amato Is Trying to Break the American 10-Mile Record on Monday. It Could Cost Her Thousands of Dollars.

Since 2011, Keira D’Amato has been part of the race committee for the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run, the famous Washington, D.C. road race held along the banks of the Potomac River. She’s held a few different roles over the years; recently she’s been responsible for coordinating speakers for clinics at the race expo. This year, Molly Huddle was one of the scheduled speakers, and D’Amato told her she believed Huddle could break the women’s-only American record of 52:12, set by Janet Bawcom at Cherry Blossom in 2014 (coincidentally, D’Amato held the finish line tape for that race). After telling Huddle about the record, D’Amato realized something: I can run that fast too.

Over the following six months, as D’Amato has risen from obscurity to one of the best distance runners in the United States, that statement has become blindingly obvious. After running a personal best 2:34:24 to finish 15th at the Olympic Marathon Trials in February, the 36-year-old has spent the summer and fall demolishing her pbs, from a 15:04 time trial 5,000 on the track in June to a 32:33 10,000 at the MVMNT Race Series in July to a 68:57 to win the Michigan Pro Half Marathon on October 28.

On Monday, D’Amato will try to back up her claim from the spring: she’s going for Bawcom’s record at the Up Dawg Ten Miler, where she’ll face a five-woman professional field that includes Olympian Molly Seidel. And that leads into one of the oddest statistics of a very odd year.

If D’Amato had broken the record at Cherry Blossom in April (which cancelled its 2020 edition due to COVID-19), she would have earned a $10,000 bonus.

If D’Amato breaks the record on Monday — or even if she doesn’t — she could end up out around $8,000.

That’s because D’Amato is covering most of the costs of the Up Dawg Ten Miler, which will take place in an undisclosed location in the DC area. Even though D’Amato is staging a race for five athletes rather than Cherry Blossom’s typical 17,000, several key expenses remain: getting the course USATF-certified and measured, securing park permits and road closures. It can add up quickly.

And then there is drug testing. USATF rules state drug testing is only required to ratify American records in events for which World Athletics recognizes an official world record. Since 10 miles is a “world best” distance, that means drug testing isn’t required to ratify an American record at the Up Dawg Ten Miler — but D’Amato is leaning toward including it anyway to avoid all doubts. However, based on the quote she received from USADA, it would run her an extra $3,000-$3,500. She hasn’t made a final decision yet.

There is an online store selling race merchandise to help offset the cost of the event. And around 20 members of the CUCB organizing committee have also chipped in a total of $2,000 — and, more importantly, their time — so that D’Amato can chase the record.

“If there was a way to measure intensity per person, this race would be much more intense [than the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run],” says CUCB event director Phil Stewart. “We’re not dealing with getting 17,000 people entered in the race and moving them around or ordering as many porta potties or things like that, but this is a group of special individuals. I’ve spent a lot of time being consumed by making sure that we have all of the conditions set for the record to be accepted if the record is broken. If Keira or anybody breaks the record here, the worst nightmare would be that there was some little USATF rule that I didn’t know about that was required for an American record to be set.”

Stewart knows that feeling all too well; last year, Stanley Kebenei thought he had broken Greg Meyer‘s American 10-mile record at Cherry Blossom, only for it to be revealed that a set of cones had been improperly placed, making the course 240 feet short (CUCB still paid Kebenei the $10,000 bonus).

With no mass race entries to fund the Up Dawg Ten Miler, CUCB will lose money on the event. But it’s worth it to Stewart to support D’Amato, whose meteoric rise he has followed first-hand — Stewart was among a group of CUCB committee members who traveled to Atlanta to support her in the Trials in February.

“One of the things that has been fun about [this event] is that in a time when there’s so much downbeat news, I think a lot of people have gotten excited about working on something that’s upbeat,” Stewart says.

And D’Amato? Well, in keeping with her carefree, laid back demeanor, she’s trying not to think about the cost and electing to focus on the positives. Five fast women (Susanna Sullivan, Bethany Sachtleben, and Emily Durgin round out the field) are gathering on Monday at 8 a.m. to race 10 miles. There will be a free live stream, with commentary, on the CUCB Facebook page. This should be fun, right? No. This will be fun.

“For me, it’s not about the money at all,” D’Amato says. “Right now when everyone’s starving for motivation and opportunity, I felt like this would be a service to the running community. And it fell in line really perfectly with my training too.”

Keira D’Amato’s return to competitive running began with a joke. Which, if you know anything about D’Amato, could not be more fitting.

D’Amato loves all things humor. The name of Monday’s race, Up Dawg, was her idea — a nod to a joke from The Office. When D’Amato joined Strava a few years ago, she began using jokes or puns to title her runs. Sample entry: November 16. My cousin, a magician, decided to incorporate the use of trapdoors in his shows. But I think it’s just a stage he’s going through. She used to rely on her children’s popsicle sticks for material or by asking her Amazon Alexa, “Tell me a joke.” As she amassed Strava followers (she’s over 2,600 now), she began receiving suggestions from fans — which delights her to no end.

“You have no idea how awesome it is that when people hear a funny joke, they think, Oh, I need to send this to Keira,” she says.

D’Amato’s impishness was on display during Christmas 2016, when she decided to gift her husband, Anthony, an entry to the 2017 Shamrock Marathon, held in March in Virginia Beach.

“Who gives someone a gift of a marathon entry?” D’Amato says. “Because that means you have to start training a lot. It’s kind of a backhanded compliment gift, I guess. But then I felt a little bad, so I signed up too.”

D’Amato was no stranger to running. A four-time All-American at American University under coach Matt Centrowitz, she finished 6th at the 2005 NCAA XC champs as a senior, ahead of future stars Amy Cragg, Molly Huddle, and Jenny Simpson. She remains friendly with the Centrowitz family, and is even in a fantasy football league with Olympic 1500 champ Matthew Centrowitz — let’s just say both D’Amato and Centro are better runners than fantasy football managers.

“I think at one point, I was in second-to-last and he was dead last,” D’Amato says. “But I also think Centro does a whole bunch of them, so maybe in his other leagues he’s doing better. But it was either the first or second week, I played him, and I crushed him.”

After graduating in 2006, D’Amato (then known as Keira Carlstrom) spent a few years running for DC Elite, a post-collegiate group coached by Scott Raczko — better known as the coach of Alan Webb. By 2008, she had lowered her 1500 personal best to 4:22, but was in constant pain, beset by a series of stress fractures and ankle pain. Her issues were the result of a condition known as a tarsal coalition — an abnormal bridging of bones in the foot — but the surgery to correct it was not covered by her insurance.

So D’Amato “retired” and got a job at mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Even after undergoing surgery to correct her condition in 2009 (her new job had better insurance), D’Amato ran sparingly for the next seven years. In her first run back after giving birth to her daughter, Quin, in August 2016 (she also has a six-year-old son, Tommy), D’Amato couldn’t make it through a three-minute run without walking. Yet she steadily built up ahead of Shamrock, and despite hail, sleet, and brutal winds on race day, D’Amato blew past her pre-race goal of 3:25.

“I couldn’t run slow enough to do that pace,” says D’Amato, who ran 3:14.

D’Amato felt there was a lot left in the tank, and took her next marathon, in Richmond in November, more seriously. After running 2:47 there — just two minutes off the Olympic Trials standard — she knew it was time to return to serious training. She reunited with Raczko, and steadily dropped her times while balancing running with her career as a realtor. When she ran a pb of 2:34 to finish 15th at the Trials at age 35, it looked like the culmination of a remarkable three-year journey.

In reality, D’Amato was just getting started.

Since the Trials, D’Amato has run personal bests over almost every distance. Her 15:04 5,000 doesn’t officially count because it came in a time trial rather than a race, but it’s faster than the Olympic standard of 15:10 and would have ranked her 6th in the US during the 2020 outdoor season.

Her most impressive performance came in last month’s Michigan Pro Half Marathon, where she clocked 68:57, 47 seconds ahead of runner-up Emma Bates, a 2:25 marathoner who finished 7th at the Olympic Trials. That made D’Amato the second-fastest American half marathoner on the year, behind Sara Hall, and 10th on the US all-time list. She is now in very elite company.

Molly Huddle broke three American records November 1

On Sunday night, two-time U.S. Olympian Molly Huddle broke three American records in one run at a high school track south of Boston November 1. 

Huddle ran for 60 minutes, breaking, in order, the national 15,000m, 10-mile track and one-hour records. Before Sunday, each of these records belonged to former Ottawa Marathon champion Nancy Conz, who in 1981 ran all three on the same day (just like Huddle), also at an event in Massachusetts. With her big result, Huddle added to her long list of accomplishments in the sport (which already includes the American 5K and half-marathon records, among others).

The conditions on Sunday night were far from ideal for Huddle, and she spent her hour of running in the rain. That clearly didn’t affect her too much, and she cruised to her three new records, smashing each of Conz’s previous marks. 

In her 1981 record-breaking race, Conz’s first big result came after 15,000m of running, when she posted a time of 53:06. On Sunday, Huddle ran a blazing-fast 50:07.82, just shy of a sub-50-minute result. This works out to 3:20 per kilometre up to that point, and she still had just under 10 minutes and two more American records ahead of her. Back in ’81, Conz ran a 10-mile split of 55:58, which, once again, Huddle shattered, running 53:49.9. Finally, six minutes later, Huddle set her third record of the night, covering 17,930m in 60 minutes to beat Conz’s 39-year-old record of 17,273m. 

Shannon Rowbury just might make her fourth US Olympic Team post-pregnancy

Shannon Rowbury proved she can run elite times post-pregnancy. Next year, she hopes to be the latest example that an Olympic career doesn’t end with motherhood.

“Having a child isn’t a death sentence,” she told fellow Olympic runner and mom Alysia Montaño in a recent On Her Turf interview. “You can come back even better.”

Rowbury, a 35-year-old, three-time Olympian, raced this month on the Diamond League circuit for the first time in three years and since having daughter Sienna in June 2018.

It went pretty well. She clocked her second-fastest 5000m ever, a 14:45.11 to place fifth in Monaco.

Only four other Americans have ever gone faster. One is retired (Shalane Flanagan). It’s very possible that two of the others could focus on other distances next summer (Shelby Houlihan and Molly Huddle).

Rowbury is right in the mix to make a fourth straight Olympics, given three U.S. women qualify per event. She can become the oldest U.S. woman to race on an Olympic track since Gail Devers in 2004, and one of the few moms to do so.

Rowbury is the former American record holder at 1500m and 5000m with a pair of fourth-place finishes from racing the former at the last three Olympics.

In 2018, she returned to training eight weeks after having Sienna. Ramping up too quickly led to a stress fracture in early 2019. She felt fatigued from sleep deprivation and breastfeeding and struggled with her identity.

Will I ever be the same? How much do I have left? Who am I without sport? 

“I love my daughter,” she said last year, “but I loved my life before as well.”

She kept running. Rowbury placed sixth in the 5000m at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Championships, racing on a lack of training due to the injury. She missed an Olympic or world championships team for the first time since 2007, when she graduated from Duke.

Then in November, she won the U.S. 5km title on the roads in New York City. Rowbury raced for the first time this year in July and is still in Europe, torn while spending three weeks away from Sienna and husband Pablo Solares, a former middle-distance runner from Mexico.

“I felt very strongly that I would never prioritize my career over my family and over my daughter,” she said. “My performance right now is testament to the fact that you can have a healthy, natural weaning process, and you can still compete at a very high level.”

Rowbury partly dismissed motherhood earlier in her career because she was afraid of potential consequences. In more recent years, runners including Rowbury, Montaño and Allyson Felix fought for maternity protection in the sport, such as with health insurance through USA Track and Field and in sponsor contracts.

“I don’t think that any woman should be told she needs to do something in order to compete as an athlete or to pursue her dreams,” Rowbury said.

Boston 10K for Women cancelled, will be run virtually in 2020

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, the all-women’s race will not be held in its traditional mass participatory form this October.

organizers of the Boston 10K for Women, are proud to introduce a virtual event for race participants to enjoy this October. Though the 44th running of the event was initially slated for Monday, October 12, organizers have followed the guidance of state, city, and public health leaders in deciding not to hold the mass participatory road race and surrounding events in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beginning on Wednesday, October 7 and continuing through Monday, October 12, race participants will have the opportunity to complete the 6.2-mile distance at a time and location of their choosing. Participants can share their times to a leaderboard, and will receive a 2020 participant shirt, training plan, and products from race sponsors. 

Registration for the 44th edition of the Boston 10K for Women will open on Monday, August 24 at 10:00 a.m. For a reduced entry fee of $25, those who sign up by Monday, September 14 will receive a commemorative long-sleeve shirt and participants will have the option to donate additional funds to one of the event’s official charities. Registration will occur at www.boston10kforwomen.com.

The virtual event will include the mailing of a pre-race participant package, and several perks sent via e-mail. There will be no programming at Boston Common on Monday, October 12.

The race is the largest all-women’s sporting event in New England, and traditionally attracts thousands of women from around the world, including an elite field competing for $17,000 in prize money. Last year, Rhode Island’s Molly Huddle won her fifth title on the flat and fast course, breaking the Charles Street breaktape in a time of 31:50, adding to her 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015 victories.

Established in 1977 as the Bonne Bell Mini Marathon, the Boston 10K for Women is the longest-running all-women’s sporting event in New England. With thousands of runners and spectators each year, it’s New England’s largest all-women’s road race, and has been organized every year by Conventures, Inc. The race features a flat out-and-back course through Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood and scenic stretches of Memorial Drive in Cambridge. More than 181,000 women have raced in the event since its inception.