Running News Daily

Kosgei, Chepngetich, Jepchirchir headline stellar Kenyan cast in London Marathon chase

Three Kenyan women aim to break the women’s-only marathon world record at the 2024 TCS London Marathon.

Three of the top four fastest women in marathon history, all from Kenya, are set to take center stage at the 2024 TCS London Marathon, aiming to break the women's-only world record. 

This elite trio, comprised of Brigid Kosgei, Ruth Chepngetich, and Peres Jepchirchir, are gearing up for what could be a historic race on the streets of London.

Brigid Kosgei, who previously set the world record at the 2019 Chicago Marathon with a time of 2:14:04, is the veteran of the group. 

She has been in top form since breaking Paula Radcliffe's longstanding record and is no stranger to the pressures of big-city marathons. 

Joining Kosgei is Ruth Chepngetich, the fourth-fastest woman of all time with a personal best of 2:14:18. 

Chepngetich's aggressive racing style and ability to maintain a blistering pace make her a serious threat to the current record.

Rounding out the trio is Peres Jepchirchir, the reigning Olympic champion. 

Jepchirchir's tactical acumen and proven track record, especially in championship races, position her as a key challenger in this record-breaking attempt. 

Her victory at the Tokyo Olympics showcased her endurance and determination, qualities necessary for a successful run in London.

The current women's-only world record was set by Mary Keitany during the 2017 London Marathon, with a time of 2:17:01. 

However, with advancements in training and competition, this record has been under threat, particularly with the recent performances of these Kenyan athletes.

Hugh Brasher, Event Director of the TCS London Marathon, emphasized the significance of this race in the context of marathon history. 

"We are in a golden age of women’s marathon running," said Brasher. He added, "Despite the incredible achievements in recent years, Mary Keitany’s record has remarkably stood the test of time.

However, with athletes like Kosgei, Chepngetich, and Jepchirchir in the field, alongside ten other women who have all run under 2:17:30, that record is under serious threat."

The race strategy for Kosgei, Chepngetich, and Jepchirchir will likely involve a collaborative effort with pacemakers to ensure a fast, consistent pace throughout. 

The London Marathon's unique setup, with elite women running separately from the men, provides an optimal environment for record-breaking performances. 

Additionally, the event will feature other top-tier athletes, including Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa, the current world record holder, and Yalemzerf Yehualaw, the 2022 TCS London Marathon champion.

Kenya announces Paris 2024 Olympics women's marathon squad

Athletics Kenya has finally unveiled the deep women's field that will don the Kenyan jersey in the women's marathon at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Athletics Kenya has finally unveiled the women’s marathon team to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games through the National Olympic Committee of Kenya.

Defending champion Peres Jepchirchir headlines the strong field as she attempts to win her second successive marathon title at the Olympic Games. Jepchirchir will hope to bounce back from injury woes stronger and she will be joined by a strong team.

She will build up for the global showpiece at the London Marathon, hoping to improve on her third-place finish last season.

Also included in the team will be reigning New York City and Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri who seeks to make history with Team Kenya. Obiri aired her interest to win gold and as she joins Jepchirchir, she is also eyeing the coveted title.

Obiri will be building up for the Olympics at the Boston Marathon where she is the defending champion and she seeks to have a great run in the streets where she claimed her first victory in the marathon.

In an interview with Citius Mag, Obiri exuded confidence ahead of the event, revealing that her body is now used to training for the marathon.

Another strong athlete who adds depth to the field will be former world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei who was runner-up at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

Kosgei has been down with injuries but bounced back this season with a win at the Abu Dhabi Marathon and she now heads to the Olympic Games, hungry for the title. Sharon Lokedi, the 2022 New York City Marathon champion will also be among the stars to descend on the course for the Olympic Games as she has made the cut to the team.

Two-time Chicago Marathon champion Ruth Chepng’etich has also not been left behind and she hopes to also claim her first Olympic title. Chepng’etich has been in great form and she will certainly not disappoint when it comes to representing Kenya.

The 2023 Tokyo Marathon champion Rosemary Wanjiru has also been included in the team, thanks to her great form and fighting spirit.

Why Eliud Kipchoge is assured of his slot in Kenya’s Olympics team

Two-time Olympics champion Eliud Kipchoge’s recent form has seen some doubt whether he will be able to defend his title in Paris but Athletics Kenya looks set to have him on the team.

Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge will definitely be at the Paris 2024 Games despite his indifferent form in his recent races.

Kipchoge has won one of his three marathons [Berlin 2023], coming after a sixth-place finish in Boston the same year, before a 10th placing in Tokyo this month.

That has seen doubts emerge from some observers who feel the GOAT might not have enough to claim a third straight Olympics gold while others have even called for the 39-year-old to give way but athletics coach Julius Kirwa feels it would be ill advised to write him off.

“Kipchoge is good and we depend on him,” Kirwa, who is among those who will select Kenya’s final marathon squad to Paris, told Pulse Sports.

“We encourage him to ignore everything that is being said about him and only concentrate on representing the country. I know he is ready and capable of representing the country as he has always done,” added Kirwa.

Kirwa insists Kipchoge has to be on the plane to Paris due to his status and the fact the he is one of the most reliable athletes for Kenya even if emerging stars are threatening to dethrone him.

“Eliud is a defending champion and is always available to represent the country,” said the veteran coach. “We cannot say because there are others who have come and run better than him we are going to leave him out.”

“We give them an opportunity to represent the country based on knowledge, capabilities, strength and discipline, which is very important.”

Kipchoge was part of a strong 10-man provisional team unveiled last December that had the late Kelvin Kiptum, with 2024 Tokyo Marathon champion Benson Kipruto, Timothy Kiplagat and Vincent Ngetich, who finished second and third in Tokyo, Bernard Koech, two-time New York Marathon champion Geoffrey Kamworor, Cyprian Kotut, 2022 London Marathon champion Amos Kipruto and Titus Kipruto.

Following Kiptum’s demise, Athletics Kenya intend to add another name to the list before the final three are unveiled by May with the women’s team having defending champion Peres Jepchirchir, former world record holder Brigid Kosgei, Boston and New York Marathon champion Hellen Obiri, 2019 world champion Ruth Chepng'etich, 2024 Tokyo Marathon runners-up Rosemary Wanjiru, Joycilline Jepkosgei, Sheila Chepkirui, Judith Korir, Seley Chepyego and Sharon Lokedi.

World record in danger! Three of the top four fastest women confirmed for London Marathon

The world record will be in danger with three of the top four fastest women in the history having been confirmed for the 2024 London Marathon.

World marathon record holder Tigst Assefa will brace up for a tough battle at the 2024 London Marathon that has attracted three of the top four fastest women in history.

The strong field assembled for the assignment on Sunday, April 21 will be keen to ensure that the women’s world record goes down one more time after being lowered during the 2023 Berlin Marathon.

The record was set by Assefa, who became the new world record holder when she ran an incredible 2:11:53, obliterating the previous best mark of 2:14:04 set by Brigid Kosgei during the 2019 Chicago Marathon.

Assefa and Kosgei will now clash for the first time with Kosgei going for the world record which she noted belongs to Kenya.

Others with eyes on the record include Ruth Chepng’etich, the fourth-fastest woman of all time (2:14:18), Peres Jepchirchir (Kenya), the reigning Olympic champion, and Yalemzerf Yehualaw (Ethiopia), the 2022 TCS London Marathon champion.

Pacemakers will be tasked with keeping the leading women on track for the women’s-only world record, which is possible at the TCS London Marathon as the elite women run a separate race to the elite men and masses.

Hugh Brasher, Event Director of the TCS London Marathon, said: “We are in a golden age of women’s marathon running.

“When Paula Radcliffe ran her incredible world record of 2:15:25 at the 2003 London Marathon, we had to wait 16 years for Brigid Kosgei to beat it.

“But since then, a further four women have run faster than Paula’s time including Tigst Assefa, who lowered the world record even further with her stunning run in Berlin last year.

“Despite this, the women’s-only world record of 2:17:01, set by the great Mary Keitany here at the London Marathon in 2017, has amazingly stayed intact.”

He added that however, he suspects that with Assefa, Kosgei and the likes of Chepng’etich, Jepchirchir and Yehualaw in the field, the world record is going to be under serious threat at the 2024 TCS London Marathon.

Mateiko and Gebreselama with bright future after dominant RAK wins

There were breakout victories for hitherto little known Daniel Mateiko of Kenya and Tsigie Gebreselama of Ethiopia in the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon in the United Arab Emirates early Saturday morning. And the imperious manner of their wins on a breezy, humid morning with a sea mist invading the latter stages suggests they both have a very bright future.

Yet the contrast in their race-winning tactics could hardly have been greater. Mateiko led from the gun, and only conceded the lead for brief periods, before outgunning his colleagues John Korir and Isaia Lasoi in the final kilometre, to win in a world leading 58min 45sec. Korir and Lasoi finished five and ten seconds behind respectively.

In contrast, Gebreselama contented herself to stay in the pack until she was ready to strike for home in the last five kilometres. Only former world record holder (64.31) and 2020 winner, colleague Ababel Yeshaneh could go with her, but that challenge didn’t last long. And such was Gebreselama’s attritional pace that by the time she crossed the line in 65.14, Yeshaneh was exactly half a minute in arrears. Jackline Sakilu of Tanzania was the surprise of the day, setting a national record of 66.05 in third place. What was no surprise was that the podium places were taken by athletes from three East African countries who share the same topography, the high altitude plateau of the Great Rift Valley.

Konstanze Klosterhalfen of Germany threatened to gatecrash that exclusive club up to the hallway point in a race, having come directly from her own training camp in Ethiopia. But, having headed the field up to 10k, which she passed in 31.09, which would have been a PB had she finished the race, she tailed off drastically and dropped out shortly afterwards, saying she did not feel well.

Olympic marathon champion, Peres Jepchirchir had been one of the favourites to win, but in the bustle of the start, someone trod on her heel and she lost around 20sec putting her shoe back on. Surprisingly for someone with her long experience, instead of working her way gradually back to the group, she shot off and rejoined them before they had completed the first kilometre. She paid for that unnecessary effort in the closing stages, and could only finish seventh in 67.19.

Gebreselama was not entirely unknown prior to today; she finished second in the world cross country championships in Australia last year. ‘That was my best performance, but today is better than that, because I won,’ she said after the race. ‘I knew I was in good shape. I think I like cross country and road running equally, but now I must prepare for the track’. In a reversal of tradition, she is leaving here for a four-month stint in an altitude training camp in the USA, before she runs the Ethiopian trials with the intent on making the Olympic team at 10,000 metres.

Having been told that there was no pacemaker in the men’s race, we wondered why Mateiko, who led from the gun kept consulting his watch and checking over his shoulder at his pursuers. Maybe he was surprised they were still there for so long, right up to the final kilometre. But having done all work, he was rewarded with a more than worthy victory, then engagingly stated that that was his intent throughout the race. ‘After finishing second last year, I promised myself to win. But the conditions were difficult; it was windy and very humid.’

Mateiko hails from Mount Elgon on the Kenya-Uganda border, but now trains in Eldoret with twice Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge under the tutelage of former steeplechaser Patrick Sang. ‘Patrick told me I was in good shape, but to be strong-minded. And Eliud is giving me advice too. I would like to have his consistency. Now my dream is to run well in the London Marathon’. If his marathon debut is as impressive as his win here today, the London crowds in April will be in for a treat.

Results, Men:

1 Daniel Mateiko KEN 58:45

2 John Korir KEN 58:50

3 Isaia Lasoi KEN 58:55

4 Gerba Dibaba ETH 59:38

5 Benard Koech KEN 59:42

6 Birhanu Legese ETH 59:43

7 Tamirat Tola ETH 59:46

8 Amos Kibiwot KEN 59:51

9 Boki Diriba ETH 60:10

10 Alphonce Simbu TAN 60:28

Women:

1 Tsigie Gebreselama ETH 65:14

2 Ababel Yeshaneh ETH 65:44

3 Jackline Sakilu TAN 66:05

4 Margaret Chelimo KEN 66:31

5 Evaline Chirchir KEN 66:36

6 Catherine Amanang’ole KEN 66:49

7 Peres Jepchirchir KEN 67:19

8 Gete Alemayehu ETH 67:25

9 Megertu Alemu ETH 69:23

10 Ashete Bekere ETH 70:03

RAS AL KHAIMAH HALF MARATHON IS ON SATURDAY AND IT SHOUlD BE A FAST ONE

New regime, new course, but with Olympic and world champions and the usual array of speedsters, Saturday’s Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon is virtually assured of the sort of fast times that have been a feature of the event throughout its 17 year history, including three women’s world records.

Pride of place both on the start list and at this morning’s press conference in one of the smaller emirates in the UAE were Olympic marathon and three time world half-marathon champion, Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, and keeping the balance in the long-term East African distance running rivalry, world marathon champion Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia heads the men’s entry. The wild card, hoping to gatecrash the party is Konstanze Klosterhalfen of Germany, who surprised the East Africans when she beat a dozen of them to win her debut half-marathon in Valencia in 2022.

Jepchirchir may neither be the fastest marathoner or half-marathoner among current women long distance runners, but she knows how to win races, an asset far more valuable than fast times. In the seven months between late August 2021 and mid-April 2022, she won the Olympic, New York and Boston Marathons, a rare collective achievement. In her comeback marathon following an injury, she finished third in last year’s London Marathon. And she has won 12 of her 16 half-marathons. She is loath to admit her plans yet, but this RAK ‘half’ is perfectly scheduled as a springboard, to going back to London in April, to upgrade that third place.

Tola was similarly annoyed that an injury preventing him successfully defending his 2022 world marathon title in Budapest last summer, but a speedy recovery saw him break the long-standing New York Marathon record with 2.04.58 three months later. He is one of the few elites to be making his debut in the RAK ‘half’ and the scale of his task may be judged by the fact that on paper there are 15 men faster than his best of 59.37 set seven years ago in Prague. But he suggested that is due for drastic revision. ‘I’d like to think I can do under 59 minutes if the race turns out to be fast,’ he said at the press conference. Fastest man in the field is Daniel Mateiko of Kenya with 58.26, but his colleague Benard(sic) Kibet has the advantage of having won last year in 58.45.

Klosterhalfen, ‘Koko’ to her pals may prove to be not only the wild card, but the joker in the pack in the women’s race. A world bronze medallist on the track and European 5000 metres champion, the German called a halt to her summer season last year when a foot injury caused her to reassess her career. She had changed her shoe sponsor, left her coach and long-term training venue in the USA already. She then switched again and has teamed up with Gary Lough, latter-day coach to Mo Farah and spouse of former world record holder Paula Radcliffe (here in RAK as a TV commentator). Klosterhalfen has also switched her altitude training venue to Addis Ababa, where she has just spent six weeks, coming directly to here. ‘Road running is still a bit of an adventure for me’, she said this morning. ‘I still want to run on the track, but I want to more road races’.

The roll-call of winners since the race began in 2007 is a ‘Who’s Who’ of distance running over the last two decades; beginning with Sammy Wanjiru and Berhane Adere in the inaugural race, via luminaries such as Patrick Makau, Geoffrey Mutai, Elvan Abeylegesse, Mary Keitany, Geoffrey Kamworor, Lelisa Desisa, Samson Kandie and Hellen Obiri. Add to that Jepchirchir herself who won in 2017 in a then world record of 65min 06sec.

The promoters of the successful marathon down the road in Dubai have been invited this year to give the RAK ‘half’ a makeover, and they began by introducing a 10k race for locals and altering the half-marathon course. ‘It’s faster and better than any route before here in Ras Al Khaimah; we’ve cut out some of the sharp turns,’ said race director Peter Connerton, ‘so we’re hoping for at least similar times and hopefully better. But with a couple of good races into the bargain’.

ELITE CONTENDERS

MEN

Daniel MateikoKEN58:26

Kennedy KimutaiKEN58:28

Seifu TuraETH58:36

Amdework Walelegn ETH 58:40

Benard Kibet KoechKEN58:45

Alex Korio KEN 58:51

Birhanu Legese ETH 58:59

Haftu Teklu ETH 59:06

Tamirat TolaETH59:37

WOMEN

Ababel YeshanehETH64:31

Margaret KipkemboiKEN64:46

Peres JepchirchirKEN65:06

Catherine Amanang’ole KEN 65:39

Konstanze KlosterhalfenGER65:41

Tsigie Gebreselama ETH65:46

Evaline ChirchirKEN66:01

Vivian Kiplagat KEN 66:07

Yalemget YaregalETH66:27

Kenyan-born American runner seeking redemption at Tokyo Marathon after US Olympic trials heartbreak

Kenyan-born American runner Betsy Saina is seeking a comeback at the Tokyo Marathon after missing out on the US Olympic marathon trials.

Kenyan-born American runner Betsy Saina will seek redemption at the Tokyo Marathon after a heartbreaking run at the US Olympic Marathon trials.

Saina exuded confidence ahead of the Olympic trials in Orlando but unfortunately failed to finish the race after the hype surrounding her. She now heads to the Tokyo Marathon on Sunday, March 3 where she hopes to bounce back to winning ways.

Follow the Pulse Sports Kenya WhatsApp Channel for more news.

Two days ahead of the marathon trials, Saina had opened up on how her son motivates her to do better and she was optimistic of representing the US at the Olympic Games.

In a post on her Instagram, she said: “My little man has taught me to be resilient and brave. Everything I do he is the priority before anything else comes.

On Saturday I will be running for him, He has changed my life in many ways, I am the happiest woman in the world.”

She has now put the setback behind her and is looking forward to bouncing back at the Tokyo Marathon where she will be up against some of the greatest marathoners.

Defending champion Rosemary Wanjiru will be returning with the hope of bagging another title. During last year’s edition of the race, Wanjiru destroyed a strong field to claim the top prize, cutting the tape in 2:16:28. She enjoyed her 2023 season and will be looking to continue the hot streak to 2024.

Wanjiru also represented Kenya at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where she finished sixth in the marathon.

2023 London Marathon champion Sifan Hassan will also be in the mix, hoping to notch up her third marathon victory since her debut in London last year. The Dutch woman has proven what she can do both on the track and the full marathon.

Hassan made her full marathon debut at the London Marathon and won most dramatically. She clocked 2:18:33 to beat marathon experts including Peres Jepchirchir, the reigning Olympic marathon champion.

She extended her winning streak to the Chicago Marathon where she stunned defending champion Ruth Chepng’etich to second place.

Hassan will be eyeing the Olympic Games and the Toyo Marathon is a better place for her to build up for the event.

Kenyan-born Israeli Lonah Salpeter has also been invited and she will be out to challenge the double Olympic champion and Wanjiru for the top prize. The Ethiopian charge will be led by Sutume Kebede and Tigist Abayechew who will be out to reclaim the title they lost to Kenya last year.

Magdalena Shauri of Tanzania will also be hoping to continue soaring high after her dominant exploits in Berlin last year where she finished third.

Konstanze Klosterhalfen is running the RAK Half Marathon

Konstanze Klosterhalfen is one of the few Europeans who have successfully challenged East African superiority in long distance running in recent years; but the German star will have a mass challenge from Kenyans and Ethiopians in her next venture, the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon on Saturday February 24.

The reigning European 5000 metres champion ‘Koko,’ to her fans, won bronze in the World Championships at that same distance in 2019, but her debut victory over a posse of leading East Africans in the Valencia Half Marathon in October 2022 signalled not only a step-up in prestige but also potential for success in the full marathon. And RAK in nine days’ time will be another stepping stone.

The RAK ‘half’ has been one of the fastest 21.1k races in the world since its inception 17 years ago in one of the smaller emirates in the UAE. The list of winners and record breakers reads like a ‘who’s who’ of distance running. Leading this year’s women’s field and a formidable opponent for Klosterhalfen is reigning Olympic marathon champion and three-time world ‘half’ winner, Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, who set a then world record of 65:06 when she ran RAK in 2017. Burgeoning competition and the advent of super-shoes has resulted in that record now standing at 62.52, to Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia.

Klosterhalfen’s debut win in Valencia came in 65:41; and with another former world record holder – Ababel Yeshaneh of Ethiopia (64:31) in the RAK field, the German will not have an easy task, the more so since she took a break in the second half of last summer season, and has not raced for six months. She was understandably cautious this week when she said, ‘Overall I am happy with how my training has been going and I’m ready to test myself and see exactly where I am after a good training camp. I’m certainly looking forward to returning to racing, especially at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon as it is a race I’ve heard a lot about’.

Klosterhalfen spends a lot of time training at altitude in the USA, and in her quieter moments has walked the runway at Berlin Fashion Week, and also plays piano and flute; but running full tilt for just over an hour before breakfast will be the order of the morning a week on Saturday.

Patrick Makau believes current generation of athletes can run under 2 hours

Former world marathon record holder Patrick Makau believes the current generation of athletes in the country will soon run under two hours in the marathon.

The 38-year-old is also notable for his half marathon performances, having won several prominent competitions in Europe in sub-1-hour performances.

Some of the races include the Berlin Half Marathon in 2007, where he clocked 58:56 hours.

Marathons had changed a lot due to technology and were far better than the marathons they ran during his time.

“As I see it, the marathons have changed a lot because it is not like the olden times. We used to view sub-two hours as something unattainable but now with the current crop of athletes like the current world record holder Kevin Kiptum and two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge, this looks like a possibility,” he noted.

The signs of an athlete running a marathon in under two hours are already evident if Kipchoge and Kiptum's recent performances are anything to go by.

In an unofficial race in Vienna, Austria in 2019, Kipchoge became the first person ever to run a marathon in under two hours, clocking 1:59.40 during the INEOS 1:59 Challenge.

Regarded as one of the greatest marathoners of all time, Kipchoge was the world record holder in the marathon then with a time of 2:01:09 set at the 2022 Berlin. His mark was later broken by Kiptum at the Chicago Marathon on October 8, 2023, when he clocked 2:00:35.

The 24-year-old Kiptum is currently the only person in history to run the marathon in under two hours and one minute in a record-eligible race.

Kiptum has won all three of the major marathons he has entered between December 2022 and October 2023 with three of his times among the six fastest in history. Makau revealed that hard work and endurance were the key for him to break the world record in 2011.

“I used to go to train in Iten and Machakos and to the polishing in Ngong. This is because speed work and build-up are two different programs,” Makau noted.

Makau encouraged athletes to find a training routine that would enable them to run a sub-two-hour marathon shortly.

“What Kiptum, Kipchoge and the other athletes can do now is to find the pace that will be able to help them run a sub-two-hour marathon shortly,” he added.

The duo currently occupy the top two positions in the world marathon ranking. Ethiopians Kenenisa Bekele (2:01.41), Sisay Lemma (2:01.48 hrs), Birhanu Legese (2:02.48 hrs) and Mosinet Geremew  (2:02.55 hrs) follow in that order.

The former world record holder, who currently trains the Kenya Police team and other athletes, also cited technology, especially in running shoes as a reason behind the fastest times being witnessed.

“During our time, there was not as much technology as we were accustomed to normal shoes. In today’s era,  running shoe technology plays a key role in determining the pace in a  particular race,” he said.

Innovations in Running Shoe Technology mean shoes are now lighter, more dynamic, and more resilient, thanks to advancements in foams, rubbers, construction, textiles, and other essential components.

Kipchoge's performances during the INEOS 1:59 challenge opened the world's eyes to the condensed foam, carbon-plated super shoes which Nike claimed could increase running efficiency and in particular the amount of oxygen consumed per minute by by 4 percent. 

Makau is optimistic the young athletes under his wings will also go further and make not only him but also the country proud. He said he is looking forward to the national trials in April to see if they get selected.

“We have intensified training in both Machakos and Kitui camps and I am hopeful. I am waiting for the trials in April to see if they will be able to represent Kenya at the Paris 2020 Olympic Games,” he said.

He also tipped Kenya to once again dominate the marathon at the Olympic Games slated for July 26 to August 11.

“I am sure Kipchoge, Kiptum, Peres Jepchirchir and Ruth Chepng'etich will represent the country well in the marathon at the Olympics,” he asserted. 

Ethiopian Tamirat Tola heads stellar field for RAK Half Marathon

Former world marathon champion Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia has confirmed his participation in the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon on February 24. The area is where he emerged as a world-class road runner when winning the neighbouring Dubai Marathon in 2017.

Chicago Marathon winner Seifu Tura and former women’s half marathon world record holder, Ababel Yeshaneh, will also be joining their compatriot in RAK. The entry for the 17th edition of the event is expected to read like a who’s who of international distance running as a wealth of elite athletes seek to take advantage of the benign Gulf conditions in the countdown for the spring marathons and the Paris Olympics.

Having won Olympic bronze on the track at Rio 2016, Tola established himself as one of the leading road runners of his generation when he won Dubai 2017, and followed that up with silver at the World Championships in London later that year. Tola won world marathon gold in Eugene in 2022, but in the interim, he won the Amsterdam Marathon in 2021 and then topped that with victory in the New York City Marathon three months ago. He also finished third in the Tokyo and London Marathons in 2022. The 33-year-old’s fastest half marathon was a winning performance in 59:37 in Prague in 2017. His close family also keeps him on his toes; his wife Dera Dida won the Dubai Marathon 2023, and his younger brother Abdisa took the corresponding men’s title.

It’s a measure of the fast course in RAK that his compatriot Tura has run over a minute faster than Tola, but his 58:36 in 2022 was only good for fourth. But a victory and second place in the Chicago Marathon has bolstered his credentials.

Their colleague Ababel Yeshaneh returns to the scene of one of her greatest victories, having set a world record of 64:31 in winning on the spectacular course around Al Marjan Island in the 2020 race. That time remains her personal best at the distance, although at the marathon distance, she also has two runner-up finishes to her name in Chicago 2019 and Boston 2022, as well as a third-place finish at the New York Marathon 2021.

The three Ethiopians will join elite fields that already include men’s defending champion Benard Kibet of Kenya (58:45) and his colleague, reigning Olympic Marathon Champion and three-time World Half Marathon Champion Peres Jepchirchir, who set her best half marathon in winning RAK 2017 in a then world record of 65:06.

Defending champion Rosemary Wanjiru pitted against Sifan Hassan at Tokyo Marathon

Rosemary Wanjiru will return to the Tokyo Marathon to defend her title and she will have her work cut out since in-form Sifan Hassan has also been confirmed.

Defending champion Rosemary Wanjiru will be up against the 2023 Chicago and London Marathon champion Sifan Hassan at the Tokyo Marathon scheduled for Sunday, March 3.

During last year’s edition of the race, Wanjiru destroyed a strong field to claim the top prize, cutting the tape in 2:16:28. She enjoyed her 2023 season and will be looking to continue the hot streak to 2024.

Wanjiru also represented Kenya at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where she finished sixth in the marathon.

Dutch woman Hassan is, however, not to be downplayed since she has proven what she can do both on the track and the full marathon.

Hassan made her full marathon debut at the London Marathon and won in the most dramatic way. She clocked 2:18:33 to beat marathon experts including Peres Jepchirchir, the reigning Olympic marathon champion.

She extended her winning streak to the Chicago Marathon where she stunned defending champion Ruth Chepng’etich to second place.

Hassan will be eyeing the Olympic Games and the Toyo Marathon is a better place for her to build up for the event.

Kenyan-born Israeli Lonah Salpeter has also been invited and she will be out to challenge the double Olympic champion and Wanjiru for the top prize. 

Salpeter has also been making headlines recently and she finished third at the World Championships last year.

The Ethiopians will be led by Sutume Kebede and Tigist Abayechew who will be out to reclaim the title they lost to Kenya last year. 

Magdalena Shauri of Tanzania will also be hoping to continue soaring high after her dominant exploits in Berlin last year where she finished third.

World and Olympic champions to compete at Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon

The powerful list of elites confirmed for the 2024 Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon continues to grow with former world marathon champion Tamirat Tola, Chicago Marathon winner Seifu Tura and former half marathon world record holder Ababel Yeshaneh joining the starting line-up.

The 17th edition of the event on February 24 will read like a Who’s Who of international distance running as a wealth of elites take advantage of the beautiful weather conditions in the countdown to both the London Marathon and the Paris Olympics.

Hosted by the Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA), the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon will see Tola make his debut in the emirate just three months after winning the 2023 New York Marathon.

The Ethiopian has a personal best of 59:13 and is no stranger to the flat, fast roads of the Middle East having won the Dubai Marathon in 2017.

Fellow Ethiopian Seifu Tura returns to the race route on the iconic Al Marjan Island with a half marathon personal best of 58:36, which he set when finishing fourth at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon two years ago.

Now 26, Tura is an established distance runner with a number of impressive results on his CV most notably a superb victory in the 2021 Chicago Marathon.

He also has four other top six finishes in Major marathons including a runners-up spot in Chicago in 2022 and two fifth place finishes in London and Chicago last year.

On the women’s side, Ababel Yeshaneh will return to the scene of one of her greatest victories next month. The 32-year-old Ethiopian will kick off her 2024 season in Ras Al Khaimah and has fond memories of Al Marjan Island having set the then Half Marathon World Record of 64:31 when she claimed the women’s title there in 2020.

That time remains her personal best at the distance, although in the full marathon she also has two runner-up finishes to her name in Chicago (2019) and Boston (2022) as well as a third place finish at the New York Marathon in 2021.

The three Ethiopians will join elite fields that already include men’s defending champion Benard Kibet Koech (PB 58:45) and 2017 Ras Al Khaimah winner, reigning Olympic marathon champion and three-time World Half Marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir (PB 65:06).

As well as a wealth of elite distance runners, the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon will also offer races at 10km, 5km and 2km runs for athletes of all ages and abilities. Registration is open at rakhalfmarathon.com.

Peres Jepchirchir headlines women field at Ras Al Khaimah Half-Marathon

Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir will headline the 16th edition of the Ras Al Khaimah Half-Marathon scheduled for February 24, 2024 in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates.

The three time World Half Marathon champion is also the only woman to simultaneously hold the Olympic, New York and Boston marathon titles, which she achieved in the seven months between August 2021 and April 2022.

Jepchirchir who also holds two world marathon majors, knows this course so well as she set her first world half marathon record here in 2017 when she broke Florence Kiplagat’s record of 1:05.09 that she had set in Barcelona in 2015 with a new world record of 1:05.06.

The mother of one will be looking to challenge the race course record of 1:04.14 set last year by the 2018 World U20 5000m bronze medallist, Girmawit Gebrzihair of Ethiopia.

Race Director and Pace Events CEO Peter Connerton said today, ‘We were honoured and enormously gratified to be invited by the Ras Al Khaimah tourist authorities to organise an event like the RAK half-marathon. We feel it’s a reflection of the success we’ve had with the Dubai Marathon since 2000.

We’ve added a 10k to the RAK programme since we’ve seen how successful the shorter event has been in Dubai; either as a challenge in its own right, or as a stepping stone for runners on the way to a half or full marathon. Jepchirchir is the first of many leading names we shall be announcing for the RAK ‘half’ in the coming weeks”.

Benard Kibet Koech ready to defend Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon title

The 17th Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon will see the welcome return of defending men’s champion Benard Kibet Koech and reigning world half marathon and Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir.

The Kenyans are the first two of what is expected to be a constellation of stars at the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon, hosted by the Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA), on February 24.

Jepchirchir’s standing as one of the world’s all-time greats is underlined not only by her Olympic marathon win in Tokyo, but also by three individual world half marathon titles, and the considerable feat of being the only woman to simultaneously hold the Olympic, New York and Boston marathon titles, which she achieved in the seven months between August 2021 and April 2022.

When she won the 2017 Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon it was in a then world record of 65m:06s, which remains her best time.

Compatriot Koech is one of many Kenyans recruited to run on one of Japan’s corporate teams. He is similarly unusual in being one of the diminishing number of athletes who combine track with road running and is a 13-minute 5,000 metre runner who also has several 10,000 metre finishes of just over 27 minutes to his name.

His victory last year in Ras Al Khaimah in a time of 58m:45s was one of the 10 fastest of 2023.

Since its inauguration in 2007, the Ras Al Khaimah race has proved to be one of the fastest half marathons on the international circuit with the race staged around the spectacular sea-side route on the iconic Al Marjan Island.

As well as the likes of Koech and Jepchirchir, the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon will see thousands of runners coming together in the associated 10km, 5km and 2km runs.

Hellen Obiri reveals her main motivation towards Paris 2024 Olympics

Boston and New York Marathon champion Hellen Obiri has revealed the main reason she is determined to represent Team Kenya at next year’s Olympics in Paris

Boston and New York Marathon champion Hellen Obiri is determined to represent Kenya at the Paris 2024 Olympics as it will give her the chance to win the only gold medal still missing in her collection.

Obiri, who has successfully transitioned from track to road, has gold medals in indoor and outdoor, having won at World Indoor Championships, two at World Championships as well as Cross-Country but she had never won at the Olympics, only managing silver twice in 2016 and 2020, both in 5,000m.

She, however, has a chance to do that in Paris next year, having been named in a formidable provisional Team Kenya and she cannot wait even if the final team of three has not been unveiled.

“I’ve won gold medals in World Championships, so I’m looking for Olympic gold,” Obiri told World Athletics. “It’s the only medal missing in my career.”

Obiri made the list alongside defending champion Peres Jepchirchir, former world record holder Brigid Kosgei, winner in London in 2020, Tokyo Marathon champion Rosemary Wanjiru, former world champion Ruth Chepng’etich, former world half marathon record holder Joycilline Jepkosgei, Sheila Chepkirui, Judith Jeptum Korir, Selly Chepyego and Sharon Lokedi.

The two-time world 5,000m champion says she has now mustered the road after winning this year’s Boston and New York marathons having received a rude awakening on her marathon debut in New York last year.

“My debut here last year was terrible,” she added. “I didn’t want to come back. But sometimes you learn from your mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes last year.”

One of those mistakes, she confessed, had been running out of fuel – accustomed, as she was at the time, to doing 20-mile training runs in Kenya without any water, gels or electrolytes. “Now I take four sips every 5km,” said Obiri.

The other thing Obiri has mustered is how to execute a tactical marathon race as witnessed in New York this year when she timed her kick to perfection, sprinting away from Letesenbet Gidey and defending champion Lokedi in the final 400m.

She crossed the finish line six seconds clear of Gidey in 2:27:23, with Lokedi a further four seconds back in third place.

“I learned from my mistake in New York,” she confessed. “I used to run from the front in track races and I thought I could do the same in the marathon.”

“That cost me a lot because in the marathon, you can’t do all the work for 42km. What I learned from New York is patience – to wait for the right time to make your move.”

Athletics coach explains the headache he faced selecting Kenya’s marathon team for Paris Olympics

The veteran coach has explained the challenges he had to overcome to settle on the provisional marathon squad that will represent Kenya at the Paris 2024 Olympics

Veteran athletics coach Julius Kirwa has revealed how he faced a difficult time narrowing down to 20 athletes who will represent Kenya at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Athletics Kenya (AK) named a provisional squad of 20 (10 men and as many women) with marathon great Eliud Kipchoge, world record holder Kelvin Kiptum, Boston and New York Marathon champion Hellen Obiri as well as three-time world half marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir among the big names included.

While the selection was based heavily on world ranking and athletes’ performances in major marathons, Kirwa admits it was a herculean task given the many good runners in the country.

“We are selecting them based on their time and world ranking. We are allowed to field three athletes only and in Kenya, we have about 120 athletes who are capable of representing the country,” said Kirwa.

“Other countries have a few to pick from but here, it has not been easy. I have taken a lot of time monitoring and some are still coming up like Alexander Mutiso ran very well in Valencia [finished second in 2:03:11 on Sunday] but it was too late to put in someone.

“We followed the world ranking and in Kenya we have Kiptum leading then Eliud so there was no need of jumping. We follow that way unless someone withdraws and you go to the next best ranked runner.”

Besides Kipchoge and Kiptum, Vincent Ngetich, second at the Berlin Marathon this year, Rotterdam Marathon runners-up Timothy Kiplagat, former Chicago and Boston Marathon champion Benson Kipruto, Bernard Koech, two-time New York Marathon champion Geoffrey Kamworor, Cyprian Kotut, 2022 London Marathon champion Amos Kipruto and Titus Kipruto also made the list.

The women’s team has Obiri and Jepchirchir as well as former world record holder Brigid Kosgei, Tokyo Marathon champion Rosemary Wanjiru, former world champion Marathon Ruth Chepng’etich, former world half marathon record holder Joycilline Jepkosgei, Sheila Chepkirui, Judith Jeptum Korir, Selly Chepyego and Sharon Lokedi.

However, world ranking was not the only consideration given Joshua Belet and Ronald Korir, who who are ahead of Kamworor on the rankings, missed out same as Dorcas Chepchirchir and Jackline Chelal.

AK explained that they also looked at consistency, championship mentality and the attitude of the athletes before setting on the squad.

Athletics Kenya has selected its Provisional Marathon team for the Paris Olympics

Athletics Kenya has named it’s Provisional Marathon Team towards Paris 2024 Olympic Games next year through Competitions Director Mr. Mutwii.

Although AK has released a list of 10 men and 10 Women, the team will be scaled down to 5 in January, 3 to compete and 2 Reserves.

Marathon Men

Eliud Kipchoge

Kelvin Kiptum

Vincent Ngetich

Timothy Kiplagat

Benson Kipruto

Bernard Koech

Geoffrey Kamworor

Cyprian Kotut

Amos Kipruto

Titus Kipruto

Marathon Women

Ruth Chepngetich 

Rosemary Wanjiru 

Joycilline Jepkosgei 

Sheila Chepkirui 

Peres Jepchirchir 

Judith Jeptum Korir 

Selly Chepyego 

Hellen Obiri 

Sharon Lokedi

 Brigid Kosgei

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."

How Hellen Obiri plans to conquer Sunday's New York City Marathon

Hellen Obiri will be banking on the lessons learned from her past two marathons to make a statement in the streets of New York City.

Reigning Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri made her long-awaited marathon debut in the streets of New York City last year and there are a lot of lessons she learned from that race.

Obiri plans to use the lessons to her advantage as she takes on a very strong field that has been assembled for this year’s edition of the race.

She finished sixth in her debut, clocking a Personal Best time of 2:25:49 which she improved when running at the Boston Marathon. 

“Last year was my debut and, in that case, I was prepared for anything to happen. I learned to be patient and wait for the right time to kick," she said. 

"I also realized that taking a lot of drinks helps a lot during the race. Last year, I thought running a marathon was the same as running on the track but now I have a lot of experience from Boston too. This gives me a lot of motivation to do well."

The two-time World 5000m champion also expressed her happiness to be back in the streets of New York to accomplish her mission.

She explained that she missed out on what she was supposed to do last year and she has returned to show the world that anything is capable. 

“I’m so happy to be back because last year I missed out on what I was supposed to do. I am back to show that I can also do these things,” Obiri said.

She will be battling for top honors against defending champion Sharon Lokedi who is the form of her life. Former world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei will also be in the mix with the hope of bouncing back.

Olympic champion, Peres Jepchirchir suffered a calf injury during her last session of training and she is yet to confirm whether she will be running.

Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey will also be in the mix after a challenging time at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where she failed to defend her 10,000m world title.

Peres Jepchirchir pulls out of New York City Marathon

Peres Jepchirchir has pulled out of the 52ndd edition of the New York City Marathon, a Platinum Label marathon and the last of six World Marathon Majors slated for this Sunday (5).

Jeochirchir who is the women-only world record holder was injured on Saturday during the workouts making it impossible for her to race on Sunday in New York.

The 30 year-old won this race two years ago in a time of 2:22.39 beating her compatriot Viola Cheptoo to second place in 2:22.44 with former world half marathon record holder Yashaneh Ababel from Ethiopia wrapping up the podium three finishes in 2:22.52.

The three time world half marathon champion was to face-off with her compatriots led by defending champion Sharon Lokedi, reigning Boston Marathon champion, Hellen Obiri, former world marathon record holder Brigid Kosgei.

Jepchirchir who was the first athlete to win the Olympic gold medal and the New York City Marathon in the same year was also to face the oldest-ever winner of a World Marathon Major (male or female) Edna Kiplagat, who be making her sixth TCS New York City Marathon appearance aged 43yrs old and the 2014 World Half Marathon silver medalist, Mary Wacera Ngugi who comes to this race with a life time best of 2:20.22 that she got last year at the London Marathon where she finished in seventh place.

Jepchirchr who won the Great North Run beating Lokedi to second and defending her World half marathon title in Riga with a course record time of 1:07.25, has been battling with a hip injury since last year that even prevented her from the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon.

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.

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir will be eyeing her second win in the streets of New York and she will be banking on her super shoes to propel her to victory

Peres Jepchirchir is banking on her Ksh 75,275 super shoes to propel her to victory at the New York City Marathon.

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir is one of the key headliners at Sunday’s New York City Marathon.

Jepchirchir will be eyeing her second win in the streets of New York and she will be banking on her super shoes to propel her to victory.

The 2022 Boston Marathon champion clinched her first victory in the streets of New York in 2021 and intended to defend her title last year but an injury setback saw her postpone her title defense to this year.

She hopes her super shoes will work wonders for her like they did for Tigst Assefa who broke the women’s world record at the Berlin Marathon. The super shoes also worked for Kelvin Kiptum on his way to victory at the Chicago Marathon where he also broke the world record.

Because she’s sponsored by Adidas, she had preliminary access to the recently-released Adizero Adios Pro Evo 1—the ultralight but expensive, Ksh 75,275, the latest player in the super shoe game. She used the shoes while winning at the World Road Running Championships in Riga, Latvia.

“I was one of the early testers for the shoe when Adidas was first developing it. I was impressed by how much technology was in the shoe, despite it being so light.

I expect (the shoe) to continue to help me achieve my peak performance I am confident these shoes give me the best possible chance of winning in New York,” she told Runner’s World.

Jepchirchir also explained that the streets of New York are one of her favorite places to run and she will be keen to record her second win.

She opened her season with a third-place finish at the London Marathon before winning the Half Marathon in Riga.

More imminently, Jepchirchir has her sights set on earning her second New York City Marathon title. She says she’s excited to do some people-watching and take in the views of the city, but above all, she’ll look to capitalize on her fitness.

Coming out of an injury setback, she wants to test her prowess one more time against a strong field.

“I am finally feeling like my strongest self again. I am eager to show what I can achieve in one of my favorite races in the world,” she said.

24 Hours with One of the World’s Best Marathoners

As the 2023 Boston Marathon winner and Olympian Hellen Obiri puts final touches on her build for the NYC Marathon, she’s aiming to become the seventh woman ever to win two majors in one year

Four weeks out from competing in the 2023 New York City Marathon, one of the world’s most prestigious road races, an alarm clock gently buzzes, signaling the start of the day for 33-year-old Hellen Obiri.

Despite having rested for nearly nine hours, Obiri, a two-time world champion from Kenya, says the alarm is necessary, otherwise she can oversleep. This morning’s training session of 12 miles at an easy pace is the first of two workouts on her schedule for the day as she prepares for the New York City Marathon on November 5.

The race will be her third attempt in the distance since she graduated from a successful track career and transitioned into road racing in 2022. Obiri placed sixth at her marathon debut in New York last November, finishing in 2:25:49.

“I was not going there to win. I was there to participate and to learn,” she says, adding that the experience taught her to be patient with the distance. This time around in New York, she wants to claim the title.

Obiri drinks two glasses of water, but she hasn’t eaten anything by the time she steps outside of her two-bedroom apartment in the Gunbarrel neighborhood of Boulder, Colorado.

In September 2022, the three-time Olympian moved nearly 9,000 miles from her home in the Ngong Hills, on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, to Colorado. She wanted to pursue her marathon ambitions under the guidance of coach and three-time Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein, who is the fourth-fastest U.S. marathoner in history. Ritzenhein retired from professional running in 2020 and now oversees the Boulder-based On Athletics Club (OAC), a group of elite professional distance runners supported by Swiss sportswear company On.

Obiri, who was previously sponsored by Nike for 12 years before she signed a deal with On in 2022, said that moving across the world wasn’t a difficult decision. “It’s a great opportunity. Since I came here, I’ve been improving so well in road races.”

In April, Obiri won the Boston Marathon. It was only her second effort in the distance, and the victory has continued to fuel her momentum for other major goals that include aiming for gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics and also running the six most competitive and prestigious marathons in the world, known as the World Marathon Majors.

Obiri says goodbye to her eight-year-old daughter Tania and gets into a car to drive six miles to Lefthand trailhead, where she runs on dirt five days a week. She will train on an empty stomach, which she prefers for runs that are less than 15 miles. Once, she ate two slices of bread 40 minutes before a 21-mile run and was bothered by side stitches throughout the workout. Now, she is exceptionally careful about her fueling habits.

Three runners stretch next to their cars as Obiri clicks a watch on her right wrist and begins to shuffle her feet. Her warmup is purposely slow. In this part of Colorado, at 5,400 feet, the 48-degree air feels frostier and deserving of gloves, but Obiri runs without her hands covered. She is dressed in a thin olive-colored jacket, long black tights, and a black pair of unreleased On shoes.

Obiri’s feet clap against a long dirt road flanked by farmland that is dotted with horses and a few donkeys. Her breath is hardly audible as she escalates her rhythm to an average pace of six minutes and 14 seconds per mile. This run adds to her weekly program of 124 miles—some days, she runs twice. The cadence this morning is hardly tough on her lungs as she runs with her mouth closed, eyes intently staring ahead at the cotton-candy pink sunrise.

“Beautiful,” Obiri says.

Her body navigates each turn as though on autopilot. Obiri runs alone on easy days like today, but for harder sessions, up to four pacers will join her.

“They help me to get the rhythm of speed,” Obiri says. For longer runs exceeding 15 miles, Ritzenhein will bike alongside Obiri to manage her hydration needs, handing her bottles of Maurten at three-mile increments.

After an hour, Obiri wipes minimal sweat glistening on her forehead. Her breathing is steady, and her face appears as fresh as when she began the run. She does not stretch before getting into the car to return home.

The remainder of the morning is routine: a shower followed by a breakfast of bread, Weetabix cereal biscuits, a banana, and Kenyan chai—a mix of milk, black tea, and sugar. She likes to drink up to four cups of chai throughout the day, making the concoction with tea leaves gifted from fellow Kenyan athletes she sees at races.

Then, she will nap, sometimes just for 30 minutes, and other times upwards of two hours. “The most important thing is sleeping,” Obiri says. “When I go to my second run [of the day], I feel my body is fresh to do the workout. If I don’t sleep, I feel a lot of fatigue from the morning run.”

Obiri prepares lunch. Normally she eats at noon, but today her schedule is busier than usual. She cooks rice, broccoli, beets, carrots, and cabbage mixed with peanuts. Sometimes she makes chapati, a type of Indian flatbread commonly eaten in Kenya, or else she eats beans with rice.

The diet is typical among elite Kenyan athletes, and she hasn’t changed her eating habits since moving to the U.S. Obiri discovered a grocery store in Denver that offers African products, so she stocks up on ingredients like ground corn flour, which she uses to make ugali, a dense porridge and staple dish in many East African countries. She is still working through 20 pounds of flour she bought in June.

Obiri receives an hour massage, part of her routine in the early afternoon, three times a week. Usually the session is at the hands of a local physiotherapist, but sometimes Austin-based physiotherapist Kiplimo Chemirmir will fly in for a few days. Chemirmir, a former elite runner from Kenya, practices what he refers to as “Kenthaichi massage,” an aggressive technique that involves stretching muscles in short intervals.

Ritzenhein modifies Obiri’s training schedule, omitting her afternoon six-mile run so she can rest for the remainder of the day and reset for a speed workout tomorrow morning. Last fall, he took over training Obiri, who was previously coached by her agent Ricky Simms, who represented Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, an eight-time gold medalist and world record holder, and British long distance runner Mo Farah, a four-time Olympic gold medalist.

Ritzenhein has programmed Obiri’s progression into the marathon with more volume and strength training. The meticulous preparation is essential to avoid the aftermath of her marathon debut in New York City last fall, when she was escorted off the course in a wheelchair after lacking a calculated fueling and hydration strategy. Obiri had averaged running 5:33-minute miles on a hilly route that is considered to be one of the most difficult of all the world marathon major races.

“It’s a real racing race. You have to make the right moves; you have to understand the course,” Ritzenhein says of the New York City Marathon. “We’ve changed some things in training to be a little more prepared. We’ve been going to Magnolia Road, which is a very famous place from running lore—high altitude, very hilly. We’ve been doing some long runs up there. In general, she’s got many more 35 and 40K [21 and 24 miles] runs than she had before New York last year.”

In New York, Obiri is aiming to keep pace alongside a decorated elite field that will include Olympic gold medalist Peres Jepchirchir, former women’s marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei, and defending New York Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi, all of whom are from Kenya. In fact, Kenyan women have historically dominated at the New York City Marathon, winning nine titles since 2010 and 14 total to date, the most of any country since women were permitted to race in 1972.

“They are all friendly ladies,” Obiri says. “But you know, in sports we are enemies. It’s like a war. Everybody wants to win.”

While Obiri is finishing her massage, her daughter returns from school. Though Obiri arrived in Colorado last fall, her husband Tom Nyaundi and their daughter didn’t officially move to the U.S. until this past March. The adjustment, Obiri says, was a hard moment for the family.

“We didn’t have a car. In the U.S. you can’t move [around] if you don’t have a car. We had a very good team that helped us a lot,” Obiri says of the OAC, whom she refers to as her friends. “The athletes made everything easier for us. They were dropping my daughter to school. Coach would pick me up in the morning, take me to massage, to the store. I was lucky they were very supportive.” Now, Obiri says she and her family have fully adjusted to living in the U.S.

Obiri returns home and makes a tomato and egg sandwich before taking another nap. Usually she naps for up to two hours after lunch. Today, her nap is later and will last for two and a half hours.

Obiri doesn’t eat out or order takeaway. “We are not used to American food,” she says, smiling. “I enjoy making food at home.” Dinner is a rotation of Kenyan dishes like sukuma wiki—sautéed collard greens that accompany ugali—or pilau, a rice-based dish made with chicken, goat, or beef. This evening, she prepares ugali with sukuma wiki and fried eggs.

Before bed, Obiri says she can’t resist a nightcap of Kenyan chai. She will pray before falling asleep. And when she wakes up at 6:00 A.M. the next day, she will prepare for a track session, the intervals of which add up to nearly 13 miles: a 5K warmup, followed by 1 set of 4×200 meters at 32 seconds (200 meter jog between each rep); 3 sets of 4×200 meters at 33 seconds  (200 meter jog between each rep); 5×1600 meters at 5:12 (200 meter jog between each rep) and finishing with a 5K cool down.

The workout is another one in the books that will bring her a step closer to the starting line of the race she envisions winning. “I feel like I’m so strong,” Obiri says. She knows New York will be tough. But “when I go to a race I say, ‘you have to fight.’ And if you try and give your best, you will do something good.”

How Peres Jepchirchir accidentally made her debut over the marathon

Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir has narrated how she 'accidentally' made her marathon debut at the Kisumu Safaricom Marathon.

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir never intended to make her debut in the marathon back in 2013 since she had just begun her professional career.

She had started off her professional career with 10km road races in South Africa and had performed pretty well for a newbie.

Jepchirchir, 20 at the time, jetted back to the country for her last race, a 10km road race in Kisumu, the Kisumu Safaricom Marathon but she was shocked on arrival.

Speaking to World Athletics, Jepchirchir explained that when she got there, she was told the 10km road race was only for the residents of Kisumu and she had to run the marathon.

The former New York City Marathon champion did not disappoint despite being a newbie since she dominated and won the race in fashion. She clocked 2:47:33 to win the race.

“I was going there for the 10k and then I arrived and the 10k was only for people from that area. I remember it a lot because I ran that first marathon without any long runs,” she recalled.

After her triumph at the marathon back in 2013, Jepchirchir did not immediately start running the 42km distance since there was a lot she had to learn.

She became serious about the marathon in 2019 when she ran her second marathon, the Saitama International Marathon, where she won the race dominantly too.

Jepchirchir then went ahead and dominated the Valencia Marathon in 2020 before bagging the Olympic marathon and New York City marathon titles in 2021.

In 2022, she won the Boston Marathon in style and became the first woman to have won the Olympic, New York City, and Boston Marathon titles. After her Boston Marathon triumph, the now 30-year-old suffered an injury setback that saw her pull out of the New York City Marathon.

She opened her season this year with a third-place finish but has since insisted that she is injury-free and will be looking to dominate at the New York City Marathon.

“I was happy because I was able to train for only two months when I was preparing for London, so for me, I was happy because I was coming back," she said. 

Kenyan Margaret Chelimo to battle Melat Kejeta at Valencia Half Marathon

World Road Running Half Marathon silver medalist, Margaret Chelimo will lead a strong deep field at the 17th edition of the Valencia Half Marathon slated for Sunday in Valencia, Spain.

The 30 year-old who is also the 2019 World 5000m silver medalist will partner with her compatriot Janeth Chepngetich as they try to dethrone the seven Ethiopia’s who will be led by the former world marathon champion, Gotytom Gebreslase, who comes to this race with the third fastest time on paper of 1:05.36 that she got two years ago at Bahrain Night Half Marathon where she took the honors.

Chelimo who is also the 2022 World 10,000m bronze medalist, will have to get past the current European record holder over the half marathon distance, Melat Kejeta from Germany who holds the fastest in this field of 1:05.26 that she got at the 2020 World Half Marathon Championships, where she finished in second behind Peres Jepchirchir.

The World Cross Country silver medalist, Tsigie Gebreselama and World Indoor 3000m champion Lemlem Hailu both from Ethiopia will also be fighting for the top podium finish.

The race director Marc Roig expresses his anticipation for the event, saying, “Valencia proves once again to be the race of choice for the world’s elite athletes looking to break records. “The return of last year’s winner in the women category is a testament to the race’s popularity. We expect to witness remarkable records, national records, and potentially the fastest world records of the year”.

Peres Jepchirchir shares why it will take time to break the women's world record again

Peres Jepchirchir has shared her insights on why it will take longer for the women's marathon world record to be broken.

The streets of Berlin witnessed a historic moment on September 27 when Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa shattered the women-only world record.

Assefa clocked 2:11:53 to completely obliterate Brigid Kosgei’s world record time of 2:14:04. Having clocked that time, the Ethiopian became the first woman in history to have run under 2:12:00.

Kosgei had set the world record in 2019 and in less than five years, it has already been shattered. However, Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir has admitted that lowering Assefa’s world record time will definitely take more time.

“For now, it’s difficult, 2:11:00 is a very difficult barrier to break. Maybe it will take some years to break that barrier.

It took time to break Kosgei’s record and it was 2:14…but for this world record, it will take more time. I know we are strong ladies and we will break it one day.

If it will not be me, then my colleagues will definitely break it and make history,” Jepchirchir explained.

The 2022 Boston Marathon champion will be heading to the streets of New York for the New York City Marathon on November 2.

She noted that she does not intend to go for a world record on the course since it is not suitable for a world record. However, she is bullish about reclaiming her title that she won during the 2021 New York City Marathon.

She missed out on last year’s edition of the event due to an injury setback but she has since announced her comeback. She opened her season at the London Marathon where she finished third.

She then bagged a win at the Great North Run before defending her World Half Marathon title at the World Road Running Championships.

Molly Seidel Stunned the World (and Herself) with Olympic Bronze in Tokyo. Then Life Went Sideways.

She stunned the world (and herself) with Olympic bronze in Tokyo. Then life went sideways. How America’s unexpected marathon phenom is getting her body—and brain—back on track. 

On a clear December night in 2019, Molly Seidel was at a rooftop holiday party in Boston, wearing a black velvet dress, doing what a lot of 25-year-olds do: passing a joint between friends, wondering what she was doing with her life.

“You should run the Olympic Trials,” her sister, Izzy, said, as smoke swirled in the chilly air atop The Trackhouse, a retail shop and community hub on Newbury Street operated by the running brand Tracksmith. “That would be hilarious if you did that as your first marathon.” 

Molly, an elite 10K racer who’d spent much of 2019 injured, looked out at the city lights, and laughed. Why the hell not? She’d just qualified for the trials, winning the San Antonio Half with a time of 1:10:27. (“The shock of the century,” as she’d put it.) True, 13.1 miles wasn’t 26.2—but running a marathon was something to do. If only because she never had before. 

A four-time NCAA track and cross-country champion at The University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Molly had moved to Boston in 2017, where she’d worked three jobs to supplement her fourth: running for Saucony’s Freedom Track Club. The $34,000 a year that Saucony paid her (pre-tax, sans medical) didn’t go far in one of America’s most expensive cities. Chasing kids around as a babysitter, driving around as an Instacart shopper, and standing around eight hours a day as a barista—when you’re running 20 miles a day—wasn’t ideal. But whatever, she had compression socks. And she was downing free coffee and paying rent, flying to Flagstaff, Arizona, every so often for altitude camps, and having a good time. Doing what she loved. The only thing she’s ever wanted to do since she was a freckly fifth-grader in small-town Wisconsin clocking a six-minute mile in gym class. 

“I was hustling, and I loved it. It was such a fun, cool time of my life,” she says, summarizing her 20s. Staring into Molly’s steely brown eyes, listening to her speak with such clarity and conviction about her struggles since, it’s easy to forget: She is still only 29. 

After Molly had hip surgery on her birthday in July 2018, her doctors gave her a 50/50 chance of running professionally again. By summer 2019, she’d parted ways with FTC, which left her sobbing on the banks of the Charles River, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and uncertainty. Her biggest achievement lately had been being named #2 Top Instacart Shopper (in Flagstaff; Boston was big-time).

The day after that rooftop party, Molly asked her friend and former FTC teammate Jon Green, who she’d newly anointed as her coach: “Think I should run the marathon trials?” Sure, he shrugged. Nothing to lose. Maybe it’d help her train for the 10K, her best shot—they both thought—at making a U.S. Olympic team. 

“I’m going to get my ass kicked six ways to Sunday!” she told the host of the podcast Running On Om six weeks before the trials in Atlanta.

Instead, on February 29, 2020, she kicked some herself. Pushing past 448 of the fastest, most-experienced women marathoners in the country, coming in second with a 2:27:31, earning more in prize money ($60,000) than she had in two years of racing—and a spot on the U.S. trio for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, along with Kenyan-born superstars Aliphine Tuliamuk and Sally Kipyego. “I don’t know what’s happening right now!” Molly kept saying into TV cameras, wrapped in an American flag, as stunned as a lottery winner. 

Saucony who? Puma came calling. Along with something Molly hadn’t anticipated: the spotlight. An onslaught of social media followers. And two weeks later, a global pandemic and lockdown—and all the anxiety and isolation that came with it. She was drowning, and she hadn’t even landed in Tokyo yet.

The 2020 Olympics, as we all know, were postponed to 2021. An emotional burden but a physical boon for Molly, in that it allowed her to get in a second marathon. In London, she finished two minutes faster than her debut. When the Olympics finally rolled around, she was ready. 

Before the race, Molly says, “I was thinking: ‘Once I cross the starting line, I get to call myself an Olympian and that’s a win for the day.’” 

But then she crossed the finish line—with a finger-kiss to the sky and a guttural Yesss!—in third place with a 2:27:46, just 26 seconds behind first (Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir). And realized: She gets to call herself an Olympic medalist forever. Only the third American woman to ever earn one in the marathon.

Lots of kids have fleeting hopes of making it to the Olympics. I remember thinking I could be Mary Lou Retton. Maybe FloJo, with shorter fingernails. Then I decided I’d rather be Madonna or president of the United States and promptly forgot about it. But Molly held tight to her Olympic aspirations. She still has a poster she made in 2004, with stickers and a snapshot of her smiley 10-year-old self, to prove it. “I wish I will make it into the Olympics and win a gold medal,” she wrote, and signed it: Molly Seidel, the “y” looping back to underline her name. In case there was any doubt as to who, specifically, would be winning the medal.

Molly grew up in Nashotah, Wisconsin, and is the eldest of three. Her sister and brother, younger by not quite two years, are twins. Izzy is a running influencer and corporate content creator for companies like Peloton; and Fritz favors Formula 1 racing and weightlifting and works for the family’s leather-tanning business. The family was active, sporty. Dad, Fritz Sr., was a ski racer in college; Mom, Anne, a cheerleader. You can tell. Watching clips of Molly’s mom and dad watching the Olympic race from their backyard patio, jumping up and down, tears streaming, is the kind of life-affirming moment you wish you could bottle. “I’m in shock. I’m in disbelief,” Molly says into the mic, beaming. “I just wanted to come out today and I don’t know…stick my nose where it didn’t belong and see what I could come away with. And I guess that’s a medal.” When the interviewer holds up her family on FaceTime, Molly breaks down. “We did it,” she says into the screen between sobs and smiles. “Please drink a beer for me.

Molly hasn’t always been unabashedly herself, even when everyone thought she was. A compartmentalizer to the core, she spent most of her life hiding a huge part of it: anorexia, bulimia, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, debilitating depression. 

It started around age 11, when she learned to disguise OCD tendencies, like compulsively knocking on wood, silently reciting prayers “to avoid God getting mad at me,” she says. “It was a whole thing.” She says her parents were aware of the behaviors, but saw them more as odd little habits. “They had no reason to suspect anything. I was very high-functioning,” she says. “They didn’t realize that it was literally taking over my life.” 

She wasn’t officially diagnosed with OCD until her freshman year of college, when she saw a therapist for the first time. At Notre Dame, disordered eating took hold, quietly yet visibly, as it does for up to 62 percent of female college athletes, according to the National Eating Disorders Association. As recently as the Tokyo Olympics, she was making herself throw up in the airport bathroom, mere days before taking the podium. Molly hesitates to share that detail; she fears a girl might read this and interpret it as behavior to model. “Having been in that place as a younger athlete, I know I would have,” she says. But she also understands: Most people just don’t get how unrelenting eating disorders can be. 

In February 2022, she finally received a diagnosis of the root cause for all of it: ADHD. About being diagnosed, she says, “It made me feel really good, like [I don’t have] a million different disorders. I have a disorder that manifests itself in a lot of different symptoms.”

She waited to try Adderall until after the Boston Marathon in April, only to drop out at mile 16 due to a hip impingement. Initially, the meds made her feel fantastic. Focused. Free. Until she realized Adderall hurt more than it helped. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, lost too much weight. Within weeks, she devolved. “The eating disorder came roaring back,” she says, referring to it, as she often does, as its own entity, something that exists outside of herself. That ruthlessly takes control over her very need for control. “I almost think of it as an alter ego,” she explains. “Adderall was just bubblegum in the dam,” as she puts it. She ditched the drug, and her life—professionally, physically—unraveled.

In July 2022, heading into the World Championships, she bombed the mental health screening, answering the questions with brutal honesty. She’d been texting Keira D’Amato weeks prior. “Yo girl, things are pretty bad right now. Get ready…” Sobbing on the sidewalk in Eugene, Oregon, she texted D’Amato again. And the USATF made it official: D’Amato would take her spot on the team. Then Molly did what she’d been “putting off and putting off”— checked herself into eating disorder treatment for the second time since 2016, an outpatient program in Salt Lake City, where her new boyfriend was living at the time. 

Somehow (see: expert compartmentalizer) mid-meltdown, in February 2022, she had met an amateur ultrarunner named Matt, on Hinge. A quiet, lanky photographer, he didn’t totally get what she did. “I didn’t understand the gravity of it,” he tells me. “I was like, Oh she’s a pro runner, that’s cool. I didn’t realize she was, like, the pro runner!” 

Going back to treatment “was pretty terrible,” she says. At least she could stay with Matt. Hardly a honeymoon phase, but the new relationship held promise. “I laid it all out there,” says Molly. “And he was still here for it, for all the messiness. It was really meaningful.” And a mental shift. “He doesn’t see me as just Molly the Runner.”

Almost a year later, on a freezing April evening in Flagstaff, Molly is racing around Whole Foods, palming a head of cabbage, grabbing a thing of hummus, hunting for deals even though she doesn’t need to anymore. 

“It’s all about speed, efficiency, and quality,” she says, explaining the secret to her earlier Instacart success. She checks the expiration date on a container of goat cheese and beelines for the butcher counter, scans it faster than an Epson DS3000, though not without calculation, and requests two tomato-and-mozzarella-stuffed chicken breasts. Then she darts over to the beverage aisle in her marshmallow-y Puma slip-ons that Matt custom-painted with orange poppies. She grabs a case of La Croix (tangerine), then zips to the checkout. We’re in and out in under 15 minutes and 50 bucks, nothing bruised or broken.

Other than her body. Let’s just say: If Molly were an avocado or a carton of eggs, she probably wouldn’t pass her own sniff test. The week we meet, she is just coming off a month of no running. Not a single mile. She’s used to running twice a day, 130 miles a week. No wonder she’s spraying her kitchen counter with Mrs. Meyer’s and scrubbing the stovetop within minutes of welcoming me into her new home. 

The place, which she shares with Matt and his Australian border collie, Rye, has a post-college flophouse feel: a deep L-shaped couch draped in Pendleton blankets, a bar cluttered with bottles of discount wine, a floor lamp leaning like the Tower of Pisa next to a chew toy in the shape of a ranch dressing bottle. Scattered about, though, are reminders that an elite runner sleeps here. Or at least tries to. (“Pro runner by day, mild insomniac by night” reads the bio on her rarely used account on what used to be Twitter.) There’s a stick of Chafe Safe on the coffee table. Shalane Flanagan’s cookbooks on the counter. And framed in glass, propped on the office floor: Molly’s Olympic kit—blue racing briefs with the Nike Swoosh, a USA singlet, her once-sweat-drenched American flag, folded in a triangle. “I’m not sure where to hang it,” she says. “It seems a little ostentatious to have it in the living room.” 

With long brown curls and a round, freckly face, Molly has an aw-shucks look so innocent that it’s hard, at first, to perceive her struggles. Flat-out ask her, though—How are you even functioning?—and she’ll tell you: “I’m an absolute wreck. There’s no worse feeling than being a pro runner who can’t run. You just feel fucking useless.” Tidying a stack of newspapers, she adds, “Don’t worry, I’ve had therapy today.” 

She’s watched every show. (Save Ted Lasso, “too sickly sweet.”) Listened to every podcast. (Armchair Expert is a favorite.) She’s got nothing else to do but PT and go easy on the ElliptiGo in the garage, onto which she’s rigged a wooden bookstand, currently clipped with A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. “I don’t read running books,” she says. “I need something different.”

Like most runners—even the most amateur among us—running, moving, is what keeps her sane. “What about swimming? Can you at least swim?” I ask, projecting my own desperation if I were in her size 8.5 shoes. “I fucking hate swimming,” says Molly. Walking? “Oh, yeah, I can go on walks. Another. Long. Walk.”

The only thing she has on her schedule this week is pumping up a local middle school track team before their big meet. The invitation boosted her spirits. “Should I just memorize Miracle on Ice?” she says, laughing. “No, I know, I’ll do Independence Day.”

Injuries are nothing new for Molly. Par for the course for any professional athlete. But especially for women, like her, who lack bone density—and have since high school, when, according to a study in the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine, nearly half of female runners experience period loss. Osteoporosis and its precursor, osteopenia, are rampant in female runners, leading to ongoing issues that threaten not just their college and professional running careers, but their lives.

Still, Molly admits, laughing: She’s especially accident-prone. I ask her to list every scratch she’s ever had, which takes her 10 minutes, and goes all the way back to babyhood, when she banged her head against the bathtub spout. There was a cracked spine from a sledding incident in 8th grade, a broken collarbone from a ski race in high school, shredded knee cartilage in college when a driver hit her while she was riding a bike. “Ribs are constantly breaking,” she says. In 2021, two snapped, and refused to heal in time for the New York City Marathon. No biggie. She ran through the pain with a 2:24:42, besting Deena Kastor’s 2008 time by more than a minute and setting the American course record.

Molly’s latest injury? Glute tear. “Literally a gigantic pain in the ass,” she posted on Instagram in March. Inside, Molly was devastated. Pulling out of the Nagoya Marathon—the night before her 6:45 a.m. flight to Japan, no less—was not in the plan. The plan, according to Coach Green, had been simple. It always is. If the two of them even have one. “Just to have fun and be consistent.” And get a marathon or two in before the Olympic Trials in February 2024. 

She’d been finally—finally—fit on all fronts; ready to race, ready to return. She needed Nagoya. And then, nothing. “It feels like I’m back at the bottom of the well,” says Molly, driving home from Whole Foods in her Toyota 4Runner. “This last year-and-a-half has been so difficult. It’s just been a lot of doubt. How do I approach this, as someone who has now won a medal? Like, man, am I even relevant in this sport anymore?” She pops a piece of gum in her mouth. I wait for her to offer me some, because that’s what you do with gum, but she doesn’t. She’s so in her head. “It’s hard when you’re in the thick of it, you know, to figure out: Why the fuck do I keep doing this? When it just breaks my heart over and over and over again?” 

We pull into her driveway. “I was prepared for the low period after Tokyo,” she says. “But this has been much longer and lower than I expected.” 

The curse of making it to the Olympics, let alone coming back with a medal: expectations. Molly’s own were high. “I think I thought, after the Olympics, if I win a medal, then I will be fixed, it will fix everything.” Instead, in a way, it made everything worse. 

That’s the problem that has plagued Molly for most of her running career: Her triumphs and troubles intermingle, like thunder and lightning. Which, by the way, she has been struck by. (A minor backyard-grill, summer-thunderstorm incident. She was fine.)

The next morning in Flagstaff, Molly’s feeling like she can run a mile, maybe two. It’s snowing, though, and she doesn’t want to risk the slippery track, so we meet at Campbell Mesa Trails. She loops a band around the back of her truck to stretch and sends me off into the trees to run alone while she does a couple of laps on the street.

Molly leaves for an acupuncture appointment, and we reunite later at Single Speed Coffee (“the best coffee in Flagstaff,” promises the ex-barista who drinks up to three cups a day). We curl up on a couch like it’s her living room, and she talks as freely—and as loudly—as if it was. Does she realize everyone can hear her? She doesn’t care. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve grown so comfortable sharing—in therapy, on podcasts, in a three-part video series on ADHD for WebMD—you just…share. Loud and proud. 

Mental illness is so insidious, says Molly. “It’s not always this Sylvia Plath stick-my-head-in-a-fucking-oven thing, where you’re sad all the time,” she says. “High-functioning depressed people live normal successful lives. I can be having the happiest moment, and three days later I’m in a total downward spiral.” It’s something you never recover from, she says, but you learn to manage. 

“I’m this incredibly flawed person who struggles so much. I think: How could I have won this thing when I’m so flawed? I look at all the people around me, all these accomplished people who have their shit together, and I’m like, ‘one of these things is not like the other,’” she says, taking a sip of her flat white. “I was literally in the Olympic Village thinking: Everybody is probably looking at me wondering: Why the hell is she here?” 

They weren’t. They don’t. She knows that. 

And yet her mind races as fast as she does. It takes up So. Much. Space. When she’s running, though, the noise disappears. She’s not Olympic Molly or Eating Disorder Molly, she’s not even, really, Runner Molly. “When I’m running,” she says, “I’m the most authentic version of myself.” 

Talking helps, too. Molly first shared her mental health history a few years ago, “before she was famous,” as she puts it. After the Olympics, though, she kept talking and hasn’t stopped. The Tokyo Games were a turning point, she says. Suddenly the most revered athletes in the world were opening up about their mental health. Molly credits Simone Biles’s bravery for her own. If Biles, and Michael Phelps and Naomi Osaka, could come clean... then maybe a nerdy, niche-y, unlikely medaling marathoner could, too.

“Those guys got a lot more shit for it than I did,” says Molly. “I got off easy. I’m not a household name,” she laughs. She knows she can be candid and off the cuff—and chat freely in a not-empty café—in a way Biles never could. “I’m a nobody!” she laughs.

Still, a nobody with 232,000 Instagram followers whom she has touched in very IRL ways—becoming an unintentional poster woman for normalizing mental health challenges among athletes. “You are such an incredible inspiration,” @1percentpeterson posts, one comment of a zillion similar. “It’s ok to not be ok!” says another. Along with all the online love is, of course, online hate. Molly rattles off a few lowlights: “She’s an attention-seeking whore,” “Her bones are so brittle she’ll never race again,” “She’s running so badly and posting a lot she should really focus on her running more.” Molly finds it curious. “I’m like, ‘If you hate me, you don’t need to follow me, sir.’” 

It’s Molly’s nobody-ness—what Outside writer Martin Fritz Huber called her “runner-next-door” persona, and I’ll just call “genuine personality”—that has made her somebody in running’s otherwise reserved circles. 

Somebody who (gasp!) high-fives her sister in the middle of a major race, as she did at mile 18 of the 2021 New York City Marathon. “They shat on me in the broadcast for it,” she says. “They were like, ‘She’s not taking this seriously.’” (Except, uh, then she set the American course record, so…) 

Somebody who, obviously, swears like a sailor and dances awkwardly on Instagram, who dresses up like a turkey, and viral-tweets about getting mansplained on an airplane. (“He starts telling me how I need to train high mileage & pulls up an analysis he’d made of a pro runner’s training on his phone. The pro runner was me. It was my training. Didn’t have the heart to tell him.”)

Somebody who makes every middle-aged mom-runner I know swoon like a Swiftie and say: “OMG! YOU HUNG OUT WITH MOLLY SEIDEL!!?” Middle-aged dad-runners, too. “I saw her once in Golden Gate Park!” my friend Dan fanboyed when he heard. “I waved!” Did she wave back? “She smiled,” he says, “while casually laying down 5:25s.”

And somebody who was as outraged as I was that I bought a $16 tube of French toothpaste from my hip Flagstaff motel. (It was 10 p.m.! It was all they had!) “For that price it better contain top-shelf cocaine,” she texted. Lest LetsRun commenters take that tidbit out of context: It’s a joke. It’s, in part, what makes Molly America’s most relatable pro runner: She’s not afraid to make jokes. (While we’re at it… Don’t knock her for smoking a little legal weed, either. That’s so 2009. Per the World Anti-Doping Agency: Cannabis is prohibited during competition, not at a Christmas party two months before it. Per Molly: “People would be shocked to know how many pro runners smoke weed.”)

I can’t believe I never asked to see it. Molly’s medal. A real, live Olympic medal. Maybe because it was tucked into a credenza along with Matt’s menorah and her maneki-neko cat figurines from Japan. But I think it was because hanging out with Molly felt so…normal, I almost forgot she’d won one. 

People think elite distance runners have to be one-dimensional, she says. That they have to be sculpted, single-minded, running-only robots. “Because that’s what the sport has been,” she says. 

Molly falls for it, too, she says. She scrolls the feeds, sees her fellow pros living seemingly perfect lives. She wants everyone to know: She’s not. So much so that she requested we not print the photos originally commissioned for this story, which were taken when she was at the lowest of lows. (“It’s been...refreshing...to be pretty open and real with Rachel [about] the challenges of the last year,” she wrote in an email to Runner’s World editors. “But the photos [were taken at] a time when I was really struggling and actively trying to hide how bad my eating disorder had become.”)

Molly finds the NYC Marathon high-five thing comical but indicative of a more serious issue in elite running: It takes itself too seriously. It’s too…elitist. Too stilted. “Running a marathon is a pretty freaking cool experience!” If you’re not having fun, she asks rhetorically, what’s the point? Still, she admits, she isn’t always having fun. Though you wouldn’t know it from her Instagram. “Oh, I’m very good at making it seem like I am,” she says.

She used to enjoy social media when it was just her friends. Before she gained 50,000 followers in a single day after the trials, and some 70,000 on Strava. Before the pandemic, before the Olympics. Keeping up with content became a toxic chore. “You feel like you’re just feeding this beast and it’s never going to stop,” she says. She’s taken to deleting the app off her phone, reloading it only to fulfill contractual agreements and post for her sponsors, then deleting it again. 

As much as she hates having to post, she enjoys plugging products the only way that feels natural: through parody. As does Izzy, her influencer sister, who, like Molly, prefers to skewer rather than shill (à la their idea behind their joint Insta account: @sadgirltrackclub). “The classic influencer tropes make me want to throw up,” she says (perverse pun as a recovering bulimic not intended). “New Gear Drop!’ or ‘This is my Outfit of the Day!’ Cringe. “Hot Girl Instagram is not how I identify,” she says. 

Nor is TikTok. “Sponsors tell me all the time: You should TikTok! I’m like, ‘I am not doing TikTok.’ I know how my brain works. They’ll say, ‘We’ll pay you less if you don’t’—and I’m, like, I don’t care.”

And to those sponsors who ghosted her after she returned to eating disorder treatment, good riddance. “Michelob dropped me like a bad habit,” she says. “Whatever. You have watery-ass beer anyway.”

To those who have stood by her, though, she’s utterly devoted. Pissed she couldn’t wear the Puma panther head to toe in Tokyo, Molly took off her Puma Deviate Elites and tied them over her shoulder, obscuring the Nike logo on her Olympic singlet for all the world to see. Or not see. “Nike isn’t paying my fucking bills.”

The love is mutual, says Erin Longin, a general manager at Puma. After decades backing legends like Usain Bolt, Puma was relaunching road running and wanted Molly as their guinea pig. “She’s a serious athlete and competitor, but she also has fun with it,” says Longin. “Running should be fun. Molly embodies that.” At their first meeting, in January 2020, Molly made them laugh and nerded out over their new shoes. “We all left there, fingers crossed she’d sign with us,” says Longin.

Come February, they all flipped out. Longin was watching the trials, not expecting much. And then: “We were all messaging, “OMG!!” Then Molly killed in London. Medaled in Tokyo. “What she did for us in that first year…” says Longin. “We couldn’t have planned it!” 

Then came the second year, and the third, and throughout it all—injuries, eating disorder treatment, missed races, missed opportunities—Puma hasn’t flinched. “It’s easy for a company to do the right thing when everything is going great,” Molly posted in April, heartbroken from her couch instead of Heartbreak Hill. “But it’s when the sh*t hits the fan and they’re still right there with you….” She received 35,000 hearts—and a call from Longin: “You make me feel so proud.” 

Does it matter to Puma if Molly never places—never races—again? “Nope,” Longin says. 

My last afternoon in Flagstaff, it’s cloudy skies, still freezing. I find Molly on the high school track wearing neoprene gloves, black puffy coat, another pair of Pumas. Her breath is white, her cheeks red. Her legs churning in even, elegant strides. Upright, alone, at peace, backed by snow-dusted peaks. Running itself is what matters, not racing, she tells me. “I honestly don’t give a shit about winning,” she says. All she wants—really wants, she says—is to be healthy enough to run until she’s old and gray.

Molly’s favorite runner is one who didn’t get to grow old. Who made his mark decades before she was born: Steve Prefontaine. “Pre raced in such a genuine way. He made people feel something,” she says. “The sports performances you truly remember,” she adds, “are the ones where you see the struggle, the work, the realness.” 

Sounds familiar. “I hate conversations like, ‘Who’s the GOAT?’” Molly continues. “Who fucking cares? Who’s got the story that’s going to get people excited? That’s going to make some kid want to go out and do it?” 

I know one of those kids: My best friend’s daughter, Quinn, a rising track phenom in Oregon, who has dealt with anxiety and OCD tendencies. She has a picture of Molly Seidel, and her times, taped to her bedroom wall. This past May, Quinn joined Nike’s Bowerman Club. She was named Oregon Female Athlete of the Year Under 12 by USATF. She wants to run for Notre Dame. 

“Quinn loves running more than anything,” her mom tells me, texting photos of her elated 11-year-old atop the podium. “But I don’t know…” She’s unsure about setting her daughter on this path. How could she not, though? It’s all Quinn wants to do. Maybe what Quinn, too, feels born to do. 

It’ll be okay, I tell her, I hope. Quinn has something Molly never had: She has a Molly. 

Molly and I catch up via phone in June. A team of doctors in Germany has overhauled her biomechanics. She’s been running 110 miles a week, feeling healthy, hopeful. Happy. A month later, severe anemia (and accompanying iron infusions) interrupts her summer racing schedule. She cancels the couple of 10Ks she had planned and entertains herself by popping into the UTMB Speedgoat Mountain Race: a 28K trail run through Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon—coming in second with a 3:49:58. Molly’s focus is on the Chicago Marathon, October 8th; her first major race in almost two years. 

Does it matter how she does? Does it matter if she slays the Olympic Trials in February? If she makes it to Paris 2024? If she fulfills her childhood dream and brings home gold? 

Nah. Not if—like Matt, like Puma, like, finally, even Molly herself—you see Molly the Runner for who she really is: Molly the Mere Mortal. She’s the imperfect one who puts it perfectly: What matters isn’t her time or place, how she performs on the pavement. Or social media posts. What matters—as a professional athlete, as a person—is how she makes people feel: human. 

She’d been finally—finally—fit on all fronts; ready to race, ready to return. She needed Nagoya. And then, nothing. “It feels like I’m back at the bottom of the well,” says Molly, driving home from Whole Foods in her Toyota 4Runner. “This last year-and-a-half has been so difficult. It’s just been a lot of doubt. How do I approach this, as someone who has now won a medal? Like, man, am I even relevant in this sport anymore?” She pops a piece of gum in her mouth. I wait for her to offer me some, because that’s what you do with gum, but she doesn’t. She’s so in her head. “It’s hard when you’re in the thick of it, you know, to figure out: Why the fuck do I keep doing this? When it just breaks my heart over and over and over again?” 

Jepchirchir takes third global half marathon title in Riga

Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir underlined her status as one of the all-time greats by claiming a third world half marathon title at the World Athletics Road Running Championships Riga 23 on Sunday (1), the 30-year-old utilising her fearsome finishing speed to take gold in 1:07:25.

She was followed home by compatriot Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi in 1:07:26, with Catherine Reline Amanang’ole completing a 1-2-3 for Kenya in 1:07:34.

“I wanted to win three times and make history, and thank God I have made it,” said Jepchirchir. “It was my birthday this week and I told my husband I would work extra hard to get the win.”

Jepchirchir led Kenya to a decisive victory in the team title, their first since 2016, when they also swept the medal positions. Their top three had a cumulative time of 3:22:25, with Ethiopia second with 3:27:55 and Great Britain and Northern Ireland claiming bronze with 3:29:15.

“I am so happy for team Kenya,” said Jepchirchir. “I knew we would sweep this as a team because I trust my colleagues so much.”

On a cool, sunny afternoon in the Latvian capital, Jepchirchir once again played a very patient game, the Olympic marathon champion and women-only half marathon world record holder content to let the pace remain steady through much of the race, knowing she possessed a gear no one else could live with when it counted most.

The early pace was relatively pedestrian, with a group of 22 hitting the 5km mark clustered together, led by Britain’s Samantha Harrison in 16:25. But that pack began to whittle soon after, with a group of eight passing 10km in 32:19.

Jepchirchir, Chelimo Kipkemboi and Reline Amanang’ole took turns at the front soon after, with British duo Harrison and Calli Thackery also putting in a shift in the breezy conditions. But in the third quarter, Harrison and Thackery began to lose contention while the Kenyans started to apply pressure up front, Amanang’ole passing 15km in 48:33 and six athletes left in the battle for the podium positions.

That was soon down to five, with Ethiopia’s Ftaw Zeray dropping away. Jepchirchir ran at the back of the pack as they approached 20km, marking her opponents’ every move. But as they ran through the old town and back towards the finish, alongside the River Daugava, Jepchirchir began to take closer order, with just one Ethiopian, Tsigie Gebreselama, sandwiched among the four Kenyans.

The 20km mark, reached in 1:04:20, was Jepchirchir’s cue to make her first big effort, surging to the front and quickly checking the effect on her rivals, with only her compatriot Irine Jepchumba Kimais dropping away. But with Kipkemboi soon taking up the pace, the Kenyans swiftly had what they wanted – with Gebreselama dropping off the leading trio.

Leading into the wind in the final kilometre, Kipkemboi began to veer around the road, hoping for assistance from those behind, but by then it was every woman for themselves, Jepchirchir smartly sitting in her teammate’s slipstream until she drew inside the final 400 metres, at which point she unleashed that renowned change of pace, surging to gold.“When I saw the tape, I started celebrating,” said Jepchirchir, who admitted she couldn’t sleep the night before as she was worried about the race. But with another global title in the bag, she has big plans for the year ahead.

“Next month I’m going to run the New York City Marathon,” said Jepchirchir, who will then train her sights on retaining her Olympic marathon title. “That’s my prayer; I pray to God for good health to get that chance. I will try my best.”

Silver medallist Chelimo Kipkemboi said: “It was great to run with Peres today. I am always proud to run for Kenya. I was fourth at the World Championships on the track so to get a medal today is very special. It’s very nice to see that I’m progressing and next, I will race the Valencia Half Marathon.”

Amanang’ole was content with her bronze, saying: “It was a very tough race but I’m super excited because it is my first time running this event.”

Focus shifts from track as road racing season heats up

As the international outdoor track and field season draws to a close, we now look forward to the feast of top-class road racing that will be on offer throughout the final four months of the year.

In just 11 days’ time, the focus of the sport will be on the World Athletics Road Running Championships Riga 23, where the best distance runners on the planet will compete for global honours in the mile, 5km and half marathon.

The likes of world champion Faith Kipyegon, world record-holder Berihu Aregawi and Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir are among the stars set to compete in the Latvian capital. Recreational runners from around the world, meanwhile, will run on the same courses as the greats when they take to the streets of Riga for the associated mass races.

There are also eight Platinum Label road races between September and December, the first of which was held last weekend with Betsy Saina and Othmane El Goumri winning the Blackmores Sydney Marathon. Of the seven other upcoming Platinum events, three of them form part of the Abbott World Marathon Majors (WMM) series: the BMW Berlin Marathon, the Bank of America Chicago Marathon and the TCS New York Marathon.

Platinum Label road races, Sep-Dec 2023

8 Oct – Chicago Marathon (WMM)

15 Oct – Amsterdam Marathon

5 Nov – New York Marathon (WMM)

26 Nov – Shanghai Marathon

3 Dec – Valencia Marathon

17 Dec – Bang Saen Half Marathon

The Chicago Marathon two weeks later will be highlighted by a clash between defending champion Ruth Chepngetich and London Marathon winner Sifan Hassan.

Two-time Tokyo Marathon champion Birhanu Legese, the fourth-fastest marathon runner of all time, headlines the men’s field for the Amsterdam Marathon. Defending champion Evans Chebet will take on two-time winner Geoffrey Kamworor at the New York City Marathon in November.

For the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic, the Shanghai Marathon in late November will welcome an international elite field.

Just one week later, multiple global champion and world record-holder Joshua Cheptegei will make his long-awaited marathon debut in Valencia. In recent years the event has established itself as one of the highest-quality marathons in the world, and this year’s edition will surely be no exception.

Towards the end of the year, the Thai coastal area of Bang Saen will host one of the newest additions to the Platinum Label calendar, the Bangsaen21 Half Marathon. Since the pandemic, it has been largely a domestic affair, but it will be back with a bang this year with a high-quality elite line-up.

Hundreds of road races each year are granted a World Athletics Label, ranging from ‘Platinum’, for the top tier of road events, to Gold, Elite and Label. There are still more than 100 World Athletics Label road races due to take place between now and the end of 2023.

Jepchirchir and Tola win Great North Run half marathon

Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir won the women’s race in 1:06:45, while Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola claimed the men’s title in 59:58 at the Great North Run half marathon on Sunday (10).

Britain’s record-breaking warm weather continued as the elite career of one of its greatest athletes ended at the 42nd edition of the half marathon that takes participants from Newcastle to South Shields.

Mohamed Farah placed a respectable and emotional fourth in 1:03:28. He would have loved to have been on the podium in his final race, but he was no match for the Olympic and world-medal winning trio ahead.

Tola made some amends for his failure to retain his world marathon title 14 days earlier. Alongside Farah, the smooth-running Ethiopian led a group of seven athletes at 5km (14:11), then pressed on as the group climbed to the highest point of the course at five miles.

Then, on the downhill dual carriageway stretch, he showed the form which deserted him in the closing stages of the Budapest marathon. His 4:27 mile to seven broke all but Bashir Abdi, then he cranked it up to 4:20 and was 10 seconds up on the Belgian, who himself was 30 seconds ahead of Muktar Edris.

Tola’s pace slowed as the course climbed, but he still pulled away to dip under one hour. No-one else got under 61 minutes. Abdi was second in 1:01:20, while Edris was third in 1:01:54.

In the women’s race, Jepchirchir went one better than her runner-up finish in 2022.

Following a snappy 5:03 opening mile, her fellow New York Marathon winner Sharon Lokedi was her only company, but just for four miles. In the 24°C heat, Jepchirchir ran quicker than she had in kinder running conditions a year earlier. This is a woman who won the Olympic marathon when it was 31°C with 78% humidity, so heat doesn’t bother her.

Behind Jepchirchir and Lokedi, who finished second in 1:07:43, was Britain’s Charlotte Purdue, who repeated her 2021 third place finish to tune up nicely for her Berlin Marathon bid.

“I decided to run by myself,” Jepchirchir told the BBC. Both she and Lokedi are also in marathon preparations as they get ready to return to the New York City Marathon on 5 November.

As with so many mass races of this kind, there were countless human interest stories and races within races amid the 43,768 starters. One unique record was established by blind British runner Jim Roberts, who completed the distance untethered in 2:08:25.

The last word goes to Farah. “All I know is running,” declared the 10-time global track gold medallist in his post-race interview that was broadcast to the sunbaked spectators on the seafront. “That’s what made me happy for so many years.”

Peres Jepchirchir using Great North Run to fine tune for New York City Marathon

Reigning Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir will be competing at the Great North Run on Sunday September 10, as she gets ready to reclaim her New York City Marathon title on Sunday, November 5.

Jepchirchir missed out on last year’s event due to a hip injury but she has now recovered and will be ready to fight and reclaim her title.

She opened her season with a third-place finish at the London Marathon. The 2021 Boston Marathon champion also finished second behind Hellen Obiri at the Great Manchester Run.

The Great North Run will be a perfect place for Jepchirchir to test out her form ahead of the do-or-die assignment.

In a previous interview with New York City Marathon race organizers, Jepchirchir said: “I was so disappointed that I couldn’t defend my title in New York last year due to an injury, and winning again in Central Park has been my main motivation as I begin my preparations for the autumn.

"New York is an important step in defending my Olympic gold medal next summer in Paris, and I will do my best to make my family and my country proud.”

But before the New York City Marathon, she will face tough opposition at the Great North Run where she finished second last year.

She will be up against compatriot Sharon Lokedi who will also be competing at the New York City Marathon. Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba and Great Britain’s Charlie Purdue will also be in action at the event.

Sharon Lokedi gearing up to defend her New York City Marathon title

The 2022 New York City Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi is hungry to return to the streets of the Big Apple and defend her title on Sunday, November 5.

As a debutant during last year's edition of the event, Lokedi broke away from the leading pack and sprinted to the finish line to cut the tape in a time of 2:23:23.

She is plotting a grand return to the streets that gave her a breakthrough in athletics and repeat last year’s remarkable performance.

“Last year, I came into the TCS New York City Marathon with the goal of being in the thick of the race, and the result was better than I could have ever hoped for.

"This year, I’m returning with a different mindset, hungry to defend my title and race against the fastest women in the world,” she said as per the New York City Marathon race organizers.

This year, she intended to open her season at the Boston Marathon but had to pull out due to an injury.

The 29-year-old is yet to compete in any major races so far this year but she is sharpening her talons in preparation for the title defense.

She will not have an easy run since she will be up against some of the greatest marathoners the world has ever witnessed.

Boston Marathon champion Hellen Obiri will be in the race, for the second time after making her marathon debut on the same course last year where she finished sixth.

She has had a great season so far this year, losing only one race out of all the races she has competed in.

Former New York City Marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir will also be in action. She missed out on last year’s event due to an injury but she will be making a return with the hope of reclaiming her title.

Sharon Lokedi, Hellen Obiri, Peres Jepchirchir and Brigid Kosgei to Race 2023 TCS New York City Marathon

Defending TCS New York City Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi, reigning Boston Marathon and United Airlines NYC Half champion Hellen Obiri, Olympic gold medalist and 2021 TCS New York City Marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir, and marathon world-record holder Brigid Kosgei will headline the women’s professional athlete field at the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 5.

When the four Kenyans line up in New York, it will be the first time in event history the reigning TCS New York City Marathon champion, Boston Marathon champion, Olympic champion, and world-record holder line up against each other in the TCS New York City Marathon.

Lokedi won the TCS New York City Marathon in her marathon debut last year, pulling away in the final two miles to finish in 2:23:23 and became the eighth athlete to win the race in their true 26.2-mile debut. In preparation for the marathon, Lokedi had raced the United Airlines NYC Half and the Mastercard New York Mini 10K, finishing fourth and second, respectively, in those races.

“Last year, I came into the TCS New York City Marathon with the goal of being in the thick of the race, and the result was better than I could have ever hoped for,” Lokedi said. “This year, I’m returning with a different mindset, hungry to defend my title and race against the fastest women in the world.”

Obiri is a two-time Olympic medalist and seven-time world championships individual medalist who earlier this year won the Boston Marathon in her second-ever attempt at the distance, in addition to winning the United Airlines NYC Half in her event debut. Obiri holds the Kenyan record for 3,000 meters and represented Kenya at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics, earning silver medals in the 5,000 meters at both. In her marathon debut last year in New York, she finished sixth.

“With a year of marathon experience now under my belt, a win in Boston, and my move to the U.S., I’m coming to New York this year with more confidence and in search of a title,” Obiri said. “I’m excited to show the people of New York what I’m capable of and that my win at the United Airlines NYC Half in March was just the beginning.”

Jepchirchir is the only athlete to have won the Olympic marathon, TCS New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon. She is also a two-time world championships gold medalist in the half marathon. In 2021, she won the Tokyo Olympic marathon to claim Kenya’s second consecutive gold medal in the event. Four months later, she won the TCS New York City Marathon, finishing in 2:22:39, the third-fastest time in event history and eight seconds off the event record. In April 2022, in a back-and-forth race that came down to the final mile, she fended off Ethiopian Ababel Yeshaneh to take the Boston Maraton title on Boylston Street in her debut in the race in 2:21:02. This April, she recorded another podium finish, taking third at the TCS London Marathon.

“I was so disappointed that I couldn’t defend my title in New York last year due to an injury, and winning again in Central Park has been my main motivation as I begin my preparations for the autumn,” Jepchirchir said. “New York is an important step in defending my Olympic gold medal next summer in Paris, and I will do my best to make my family and my country proud.”

Kosgei is the world-record holder in the marathon and has won an Olympic silver medal and five Abbott World Marathon Majors races; she will now make her TCS New York City Marathon debut. In 2019, Kosgei broke Paula Radcliffe’s 16-year-old world record by 81 seconds, running 2:14:04 to win the Chicago Marathon. It was her second Chicago Marathon victory, as she’d also won in 2018. Additionally, she won back-to-back London Marathons in 2019 and 2020, the Tokyo Marathon in 2022, and the silver medal at the Tokyo Olympic marathon.

“I am very excited to make my New York City debut this fall, and attempt to win my fourth different Major,” Kosgei said. “I am not worried about the course, as I have had success in hilly marathons before, but New York has always been about head-to-head competition, and I know I must be in the best possible shape to compete with the other women in the race.”

The 2023 TCS New York City Marathon women’s professional athlete field is presented by Mastercard®. The full professional athlete fields will be announced at a later date.

The 2023 TCS New York City Marathon on Sunday, November 5 will have 50,000 runners and be televised live on WABC-TV Channel 7 in the New York tristate area, throughout the rest of the nation on ESPN2, and around the world by various international broadcasters.

Sheila Chepkirui over the moon after making Team Kenya to Budapest

Kenyan marathon runner, Sheila Chepkirui, has expressed her delight at being selected for the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

Chepkirui, 33, comprises the stellar list of headliners unveiled by Athletics Kenya (AK) last week to hold forte for the country in the flagship global extravaganza set for August. 

The Commonwealth Games 10,000m bronze medalist said she has already begun her preparations in anticipation of a monumental conquest in the central European nation. 

"I'm overjoyed to have made the team. It is always a wonderful honour to be given the rare opportunity to represent the country on such a stage. "I'm hoping to do well," Chepkirui said. 

She said she plans to participate in the Boston 10k race on June 25 as part of her training program."Right now my focus is to prepare adequately for the World Championships. I'll be traveling to the US to battle out in the Boston 10k race to evaluate my speed," Chepkirui remarked.  "I don't intend to compete in any major marathon events until then," Chepkirui said. 

Budapest will be her third marathon attempt after she clocked 2:17:29 to wrap up sixth on her debut over the distance in Valencia last year.

She heads into the championships buoyed by her impressive show at the 2023 London Marathon on April 23, where she placed fourth behind Holland's Sifa Hassan, Ethiopian Alemu Megertu, and compatriot Peres Jepchirchir respectively.

  The Kenya Defence Forces officer said she is currently on vacation in Kericho county, where she is perfecting her act for the herculean task. I am currently on leave, so I am training alone at home in Kericho. I usually work out with the KDF team in Ngong," she stated. 

Chepkirui will be heading to Budapest strengthened by a recent heartwarming report that ranked her fourth in the 10 km road race on the world all-time list.

A natural trailblazer, Chepkirui defeated Japan's Yuriko Kobayashi over 1500m at the 2005 World Youth Championships to storm her maiden global title after posting a championship record of 4:12.29. 

After enrolling with Kenya Defence Forces around 2012, she secured a spot on the plane to the 2016 African Cross Country Championships, where she bagged the silver in a Kenyan podium sweep alongside compatriots Alice Aprot and Beatrice Mutai.

Chepkirui will, however, first have to fend off a stiff challenge from 2020 Tokyo Olympics silver medals Brigid Kosgei who won the 2018 and 2019 Chicago Marathons, the 2019 and 2020 London Marathons, and the 2021 Tokyo Marathon. 

She won the Paris Half Marathon title in France after clocking 66.00 minutes ahead of Ethiopian Betelihem Yemer (66.45) and Kenyan Marion Kibor (66.45). Unforeseen visa gremlins saw her painfully miss out on this year's Boston Marathon as well as the Oregon22 World Athletics Championships.  

She nonetheless secured a place in Team Kenya for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games last year, where she blazed to the 10,000m bronze podium behind Scot Eilish McColgan and compatriot Irene Cheptai.   

Mo Farah eighth in penultimate race of career

Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah finished eighth at the Great Manchester Run, the penultimate race of his career.

The 40-year-old Briton completed the 10km course in 29 minutes 11 seconds - 44 seconds behind winner Eyob Faniel of Italy.

Kenya's Hellen Obiri defended the women's title in 31 minutes 14 seconds.

Farah's final competitive race will be the Great North Run in Newcastle on 10 September.

"I'm so proud of what I've achieved throughout my career," he told BBC Sport.

"I was a bit nervous at the start, but this city has some great history and the support I got was amazing."

Farah won 5,000m and 10,000m gold at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.

He has also won six world and five European golds, and was knighted in 2017.

Faniel, who was born in Eritrea but moved to Italy as a child, beat Briton Marc Scott by four seconds, with Australia's Stewart McSweyn a further four seconds back. Britain's Jonny Mellor was 10th.

Obiri, who won the Boston Marathon last month, finished 45 seconds ahead of compatriot Peres Jepchirchir in second.

Calli Thackery was third - 1min 37secs behind Obiri - one of five Britons in the top 10.

Stephanie Twell was fourth, Rose Harvey fifth, Natasha Cockram seventh and Rachael Franklin 10th.

Britain's Commonwealth 10,000m champion Eilish McColgan was absent as she recovers from a knee injury.

Peres Jepchirchir will compete in the Great Manchester Run 10km race on Sunday

Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir and Hellen Obiri will compete in the Great Manchester Run 10km race on Sunday.

Jepchirchir will be using the race to train for the next marathon season where she is optimistic of good results.

The Kapsabet-based Jepchirchir will battle it out with defending champion Hellen Obiri, who is fresh from winning the Boston Marathon last month in the USA, among other athletes.

“Competing in the race on Sunday is just part of my training as we start another marathon season. I’m still waiting for confirmation from my management on which race I will be competing in next,” said Jepchirchir.

She said that it feels good competing once again after being out for a long period due to injuries. She has set her eyes on performing well in the forthcoming assignments.

“Competing in the London Marathon and finishing on the podium was something sweet for me. I was running to see how my body would react and I was elated by my performance. I believe I will be able to compete well in the forthcoming events,” added Jepchirchir.

Obiri has risen to stamp authority in the road races after graduating from track where she ruled in the 5,000m and 10,000m. She said that she has just resumed her training and prepared for only two weeks. 

“I will be competing on Sunday but I don’t have anything in mind despite having ran a course record last year. I will be eyeing a good race because I have just trained for two weeks,” Obiri told Nation Sport on phone from UK.

Her debut in marathon saw her emerge sixth in the 2022 New York Marathon in a time of 2:25:49 before winning her second marathon race, Boston Marathon in a personal best of 2:21:38.

Also in the mix is Ethiopia’s former world silver medalist in the 5,000m Senbere Teferi, British athletes, Mollie Williams, Steph Twell, Rose Harvey, Lily Patridge among others.

In last year’s race, Obiri ran a course record of 30:15 winning ahead of British Eilish McColgan who clocked 30:19 while Kenya’s Ruth Chepng’etich settled for third place in 30:29.

Manchester stage set for speedy 10km contests

Mo Farah set for penultimate race while Hellen Obiri returns to defend her crown on city streets.

Mo Farah will tackle what is set to be the penultimate competitive race of his storied career as the 20th edition of the AJ Bell Great Manchester Run is staged on Sunday (May 21), but it won’t just be the multiple global track champion who will be attracting attention on the city streets.

Last year’s 10km event produced a spectacular women’s race as Hellen Obiri surged to a brilliant win in 30:15, four seconds ahead of Eilish McColgan’s British record-breaking performance.

The Kenyan returns to defend her title this year, fresh from winning the Boston Marathon last month, but the former 5000m world champion and 2022 Great North Run winner won’t be joined by McColgan who is continuing her recovery from the knee problem which prevented her from making her marathon debut in London.

Instead, the strongest challenge is set to come from Peres Jepchirchir, the Kenyan Olympic marathon champion who was third in London, and Ethiopia’s 2015 5000m world championships silver medallist Senbere Teferi.

Steph Twell will lead the home charge as part of a British contingent which also features the likes of Mollie Williams, Monika Jackiewicz, Lily Partridge, Rose Harvey and Natasha Cockram.

On paper, the fastest man in the men’s field is Callum Hawkins, though how close he can come to his 10km road PB of 28:02 remains to be seen following his injury problems in recent years. The Scot, who has twice finished fourth over the marathon at the World Championships, will be looking to make more progress back towards top form.

Fellow Brit Marc Scott, the winner of this event in 2021, has a PB of 28:03 and will want to make his mark in his first outing since coming 12th in the Istanbul Half Marathon at the end of last month. Farah can expect plenty of support again, having last been seen in action when coming ninth in the London Marathon, where he confirmed his intention to retire at the end of this year. The four-time Olympic champion also clocked 30:41 for 10km in Gabon last month.

The home athletes will be up against the Australian duo of Jack Rayner – runner-up in Manchester last year and the current national 10km record holder – plus Stewart McSweyn, the national 1500m and 3000m record-holder who has an identical road PB to Scott.

Last year’s Osaka Marathon champion, Japan’s Gaku Hoshi, plus Uganda’s Commonwealth marathon champion Victor Kaplangat, add to the strength of the international field.

The men’s wheelchair race should be a tight contest, too, featuring Sean Frame, Johnboy Smith and Commonwealth marathon bronze medallist Simon Lawson.

As well as the popular 10km, the event schedule also features a half marathon plus the Mini and Junior Great Manchester Run.

London Marathon 2023: Kelvin Kiptum and Sifan Hassan win with superb runs

Kenya's Kelvin Kiptum smashed compatriot Eliud Kipchoge's course record to win the men's London Marathon in the second-fastest time ever.

The 23-year-old was just 16 seconds outside Kipchoge's world record, finishing in two hours one minute 25 seconds.

Sifan Hassan also produced a remarkable run to win the women's race.

The Dutch Olympic track champion, 30, suffered with a hip injury but battled to win on her debut at the distance.

“It was really amazing,” she says. She never thought she could win, so can’t believe that she did. The crowd are amazing, she says, and every single kilometre she was grateful to be there.

She’s so happy and it’s beautiful to see; she explains she has a pre-existing hip problem, hence the stretching, and because she was fasting she didn’t practise so didn’t know where to stop for drinks.

At 20km she felt she wasn’t tired and was thinking about getting experience for her next marathon and at every moment she was grateful. She didn’t have confidence because she didn’t practise drinking and she found it really tough; she realised she didn’t have to have as much as she should.

Living in the States, she used to set her alarm to watch this race, and now she’s won it she’ll never forget it. She’d been told she’d hurt, but felt much better after 35km than she thought, and when she saw the line she thought it that really it?!

She needs to decide what race she’ll run at the Paris Olympics next summer but she’s so grateful. What an incredible racer and lovely person.

Kiptum produced the fastest marathon debut in Valencia in December, where he finished in 2:01:53 - the third-fastest time in history.

He went faster still on the streets of London, knocking one minute and 12 seconds off Kipchoge's previous course record to beat second-placed compatriot Geoffrey Kamworor by almost three minutes.

Ethiopia's reigning world champion Tamirat Tola was third, while Britain's Mo Farah finished ninth in what he says will be his last marathon.

Emile Cairess, 25, produced a superb run to finish as the first British man home, taking sixth in 2:08:07 on his marathon debut. 

It was the third-fastest marathon time by a British man - behind Farah and Steve Jones - and the second fastest by a Briton in the London race. 

Four British runners finished in the top 10 in total, with Phil Sesemann eighth and Chris Thompson 10th.

In the women's race, Hassan, who won the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, appeared out of the race after dropping back early on with a hip problem, but gradually fought back.

She then produced a sprint finish to win in two hours 18 minutes 33 seconds.

Ethiopia's Alemu Megertu was second and Kenya's previously unbeaten Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir third. 

Kenyan world record holder Brigid Kosgei looked to be limping from the start and dropped out after just three minutes, while Ethiopia's defending champion Yalemzerf Yehualaw was fifth. 

Sam Harrison, 27, was the first British woman home, clocking a new personal best of 2:25:59 for the 26.2-mile distance as she claimed 11th. 

It was the fifth-fastest time by a British woman in the event. 

Switzerland's Marcel Hug knocked 50 seconds off his own course record to win a third consecutive London Marathon men's wheelchair race - and fifth in total.

Hug, 37, finished in one hour 23 minutes 48 seconds, well ahead of the Netherlands' Jetze Plat in second, with Japan's Tomoki Suzuki third and the United States' Daniel Romanchuk in fourth.

Britain's David Weir, 43, finished his 24th London Marathon in fifth place.

Australia's Madison de Rozario held off Manuela Schar, of Switzerland, in a sprint finish to win the women's wheelchair race for a second time.

The four women's favourites made it on the Mall together before De Rozario and Schar pulled away.

De Rozario won in one hour 38 minutes 52 seconds, with defending champion Catherine Debrunner, of Switzerland, in third and the United States' Susannah Scaroni fourth.

Eden Rainbow-Cooper, 21, who was third in 2022, was the first Briton home in seventh.

The event has returned to its traditional date in the calendar, in April, for the first time since 2019 after being moved during the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than 47,000 runners are taking part, with huge crowds lining the streets of London despite damp conditions.

World marathon silver medalist Judith Korir motivated for London race

World marathon silver medalist Judith Korir believes she has what takes  to secure a podium place in the 43rd London Marathon in the United Kingdom on Sunday.

But it will be a tall order for her as she faces a formidable field that has her compatriots, reigning Olympics marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir and Olympics marathon silver medallist Brigid Kosgei, who is also the world marathon record holder.

The runners will be targeting the course’s best time, which is a women’s only world record time set by Kenya’s Mary Keitany in 2017.

Last year, Korir who trains under the Italy-based Rosa Associati management, was initially entered in the London Marathon as a pacesetter but the last minute withdrawal of Brigid Kosgei saw her registered as a competitor.

She went on to finish fourth in a time of 2:18:43. This time she has been training in the full knowledge she is in the list of the elite women competitors.

“The line-up is tough but I believe in my training. I can’t compare it with last year where I prepared for one month,” Kosgei said when Nation Sport caught up with her at the Ndura Sports Complex in Kitale, last week as she put the finishing touches to her training.

“Competing with some of the best athletes in the marathon like Jepchirchir and Kosgei motivates me to work extra hard,” she said.

“London Marathon line-up is tough and my target is just to run well because we have some of the best athletes in the world participating,” added Korir, who is the 2022 Paris Marathon champion.

Nation Media Group’s NTV will broadcast the race live. There will be a watch party in Eldoret, at the Uasin Gishu County big screen along Uganda Road, starting at 8am on race day.

Natasha Wodak withdraws from 2023 London Marathon

The Canadian women’s marathon record holder, Natasha Wodak, will not be racing at the 2023 London Marathon this Sunday. The 41-year-old announced on her Instagram Tuesday that she has been trying to train through injury and sickness but has not been 100 per cent, which has forced her to withdraw. 

“I am absolutely gutted to announce I’ve pulled out of Sunday’s London Marathon,” wrote Wodak. “The last few days have been incredibly tough trying to decide what to do, but  I am so grateful to all the people in my life that have reassured me that we have made the right decision.”

Earlier in her marathon training build, Wodak was dealing with two separate injuries, which resulted in her missing training. “We put up a great fight when injuries tried to derail us,” wrote Wodak. Two weeks before the marathon, I started having stomach issues, and I’ve unfortunately been sick since. I have not been able to eat much, and we all know you can’t race a marathon under-fuelled.”

Last year at the 2022 Berlin Marathon, Wodak set a new Canadian marathon record of 2:23:12 with her 12th-place finish.

The two-time Canadian Olympian beat the previous record by a minute and 38 seconds, held by Malindi Elmore from the 2020 Houston Marathon (2:24:50).

Wodak was set to take on one of the greatest women’s marathon fields ever assembled, including Olympic champions Sifan Hassan and Peres Jepchirchir, plus the world record holder Brigid Kosgei and the marathon debut of Eilish McColgan. 

Wodak remained optimistic about a return to the marathon, “Right now, I will take the time to rest and reset,” she said. “We have more races to come.”

With Wodak’s withdrawal, there will now be no Canadian elites at the 2023 London Marathon. Rory Linkletter was supposed to start in the men’s elite field but also had to withdraw from an IT band flare-up in late March. 

Eliud Kipchoge is human afterall

Eliud Kipchoge came to Boston seeking to add the world’s most storied annual marathon to his unrivaled trophy case. He will leave with a sixth-place result and questions about whether he can achieve two outstanding, unprecedented goals.

“I live for the moments where I get to challenge the limits,” was posted on Kipchoge’s social media four hours after he finished. “It’s never guaranteed, it’s never easy. Today was a tough day for me. I pushed myself as hard as I could but sometimes, we must accept that today wasn’t the day to push the barrier to a greater height.”

Kipchoge was dropped in the 19th mile in his Boston Marathon debut in the middle of the race’s famed hills. He finished 3 minutes, 29 seconds behind fellow Kenyan Evans Chebet, who clocked 2:05:54 and became the first male runner to repeat as Boston champion since 2008.

“I did not observe Kipchoge,” Chebet said of what happened, according to the Boston Athletic Association. “Eliud was not so much of a threat because the bottom line was that we trained well.”

It marked just Kipchoge’s third defeat in 18 career marathons, a decade-long career at 26.2 miles that’s included two world record-breaking runs and two Olympic gold medals.

Kipchoge, 38, hopes next year to become the first person to win three Olympic marathons, but major doubt was thrown on that Monday, along with his goal to win all six annual World Marathon Majors. Kipchoge has won four of the six, just missing Boston and New York City, a November marathon that he has never raced.He skipped his traditional spring marathon plan of racing London to go for the win in Boston, the world’s oldest annual marathon dating to 1897.

Kipchoge has yet to speak to media, but may be asked whether a failed water bottle grab just before he lost contact with a leading pack of five contributed to his first defeat since he placed eighth at the 2020 London Marathon. Boston’s weather on Monday, rainy, was similar to London in 2020.

Kipchoge’s only other 26.2-mile loss was when he was runner-up at his second career marathon in Berlin in 2013.

He is expected to race two more marathons before the Paris Games. Kipchoge will be nearly 40 come Paris, more than one year older than the oldest Olympic champion in any running event, according to Olympedia.org. Kenya has yet to name its three-man Olympic marathon team.

“In sports you win and you lose and there is always tomorrow to set a new challenge,” was posted on Kipchoge’s social media. “Excited for what’s ahead.”

Kenyan Hellen Obiri won Monday’s women’s race in 2:21:38, pulling away from Ethiopian Amane Beriso in the last mile.

Obiri, a two-time world champion and two-time Olympic medalist in the 5000m on the track, made her marathon debut in New York City last November with a sixth-place finish. She was a late add to the Boston field three weeks ago after initially eschewing a spring marathon.

“I didn’t want to come here, because my heart was somewhere else,” said Obiri, who is coached in Colorado by three-time U.S. Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein. “But, my coach said I should try and go to Boston.”

Emma Bates was the top American in fifth in the second-fastest Boston time for an American woman ever, consolidating her status as a favorite to make the three-woman Olympic team at next February’s trials in Orlando. Emily Sisson and Keira D’Amato, who traded the American marathon record last year, didn’t enter Boston.

“I expected myself to be in the top five,” said the 30-year-old Bates, who feels she can challenge Sisson’s American record of 2:18:29, if and when she next races on a flat course.

The next major marathon is London on Sunday, headlined by women’s world record holder Brigid Kosgei of Kenya, Tokyo Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands in her 26.2-mile debut.

Eilish McColgan has had a spectacular year and now she has her sights set on competing at the Olympics in the marathon but she has not run a marathon yet

After three decades immersed in athletics, there are not too many times now when Eilish McColgan is stepping into the unknown.

Next Sunday, however, will be one of those unusual occasions when she stands on the start line not knowing quite what to expect as she will make her marathon debut in London.

For all the thousands upon thousands of miles she has run in training over the years, she is treading new ground.

“I’ve never run 26 miles,” she says. “I don’t actually know many athletes who do the full distance in training.

“We coach amateur runners and we advise not to do more than 22 miles in training and that’s what I’ve been doing myself. There is the mental aspect of can you actually get round 26 miles? But I’ve done 22-mile runs and I had no doubt at the end of them I could have run another four-mile loop. So it’s not so much the distance for me that will be tough, it’s going to be the pace of it.

“There’s a big difference between a long run and a hard, hard effort for that long. So for me, that’s what’s unknown and not something I’ve particularly tested in training.

“I think that’s something that only comes with the experience of racing.”

McColgan is certainly not easing herself in gently. London boasts the strongest women’s marathon field ever assembled with defending champion and world 10k record holder Yalemzerf Yehualaw, marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei and Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir all going to be on the start line.

However, with the 32-year-old from Dundee having had the year of her life over the past 12 months, she could not be in a better frame of mind.

McColgan has been on the international scene since 2012, when she competed in her first Olympic Games, but it was in 2022 that she really grabbed the spotlight.

Commonwealth gold in the 10,000m in Birmingham was the most memorable of her performances, but that win was accompanied by a raft of Scottish, British and European records both on the track and on the road.

McColgan has continued her sparkling form into 2023, with her opening appearance of the year a run over 10,000m of 30 minutes 0.86 seconds, breaking Paula Radcliffe’s long-standing national record and smashing her own personal best by 19 seconds.

That was followed by a win at the Berlin Half Marathon two weeks ago in yet another British record and McColgan admits that despite the trepidation that is certainly present about running her first marathon, she is in a confident mood.

“I’m really pleased with my runs. To have come away with British records and such big PBs, I was really happy,” she says. “It’s given me quite a lot of confidence knowing that the training I’m doing is really suited to me.

“I know for sure I can run a good 5k, a good 10k and a good half marathon so now the question is whether or not I can run a good marathon because it’s something I’ve never done. I’m certainly in a better place to run the marathon now than I ever have been but how I actually cope with it, we won’t know till race day.”

The one, and perhaps only, down side of McColgan’s spectacular year is that expectations from observers are now sky-high regarding what she is likely to achieve in London.

However, McColgan is far too pragmatic and too experienced to expect anything spectacular and instead, she sees next weekend’s race as the start of her marathon journey which will, she hopes, lead to the start line of the Olympic marathon in Paris next summer.

“This first marathon is about getting the experience of it,” she says. “I’m in a much stronger position than I’ve ever been and so I’ve given myself the best opportunity to run a good marathon but there’s a lot of things that come into play on the day with regard to the mental side of it, the physical side of covering that sort of distance at that fast pace and the fuelling side of things to make sure I don’t hit the wall.

“There’s a lot more elements that come into a marathon than do on the track or on the shorter road races.

“I know other people maybe expect me to go to London and be competitive but that’s not realistic.

“I’m going into the best marathon field that’s ever been assembled so I have to be realistic with what I can achieve within that. I’m certainly not going in there to win.”

McColgan may not be targeting a podium place but she is not lacking goals for the race.

With the 2024 Olympic Games already in her mind, qualification for Paris is of primary importance – and ideally sooner rather than later – but she also has her mum, Liz’s, one remaining time that is faster than her in her sights over those 26.1 miles in London.

“I have a few goals for London,” she says. “Firstly, I want to get round in one piece. That’s my No.1 goal – to get round and feel like yes, I want to do the marathon at the Paris Olympics,” she says.

“Secondly, this is the final PB that my mum still has of 2 hours 26 mins. Steph Twell took her Scottish record a couple of years ago when she ran 2:25 so I have that in my head as a time target.

“I do feel I’m capable of running faster than my mum and getting that Scottish record and it’d be a triple-whammy because it’d be a qualifying time for the Paris Olympics too.

“I’d like to be competitive against the British girls and if I can do that, I think I can knock those three goals off in the process.

“If I can achieve all my personal goals, that’d be a good day for me.”

Kenyan Celestine Chepchirchir eyes Boston Marathon title

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sifan Hassan to debut in stacked women’s London Marathon field

Aday after releasing the men’s start list for the 2023 London Marathon, race organizers have announced the women’s field, and it is jam-packed with stars. The race will feature marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei, reigning Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir and Sifan Hassan, who will be making her highly anticipated marathon debut. The race is April 23, and with so many amazing runners set to toe the line in London, it will be incredible to watch.

Who to watch for in London 

Kosgei has the fastest seed time of the women’s field–by a long shot. (Her 2:14:04 world record is a full minute and a half faster than that of Ethiopia’s Tigist Assefa, who owns the fifth-fastest marathon in history at 2:15:37.) However, Kosgei isn’t necessarily a lock for the win, as there are far too many other extremely successful athletes in the mix. Jepchirchir has had an incredible string of marathons, winning the last five she has entered, including the Tokyo 2020 Olympic marathon, Boston and New York. She’ll be a heavy favourite to make it six in a row (and grab yet another World Marathon Major) in London. 

Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw is another must-watch athlete; not only is she the 10K world record holder, but she also won her debut marathon in Hamburg last spring. Just a few months later, she followed up with a win at the London Marathon and is the defending champion.

Like Hassan, Great Britain’s Eilish McColgan will be running her debut marathon. She’s coming off an amazing season in 2022 that saw her win Commonwealth Games gold in the 10,000m and silver in the 5,000m and set three national records, including her 1:06:26 half-marathon best. Canadian marathon record holder Natasha Wodak is also set to race in London. 

Hassan’s debut

Hassan is one of the fastest runners in history. She is the reigning Olympic champion in the 5,000m and 10,000m (she also won bronze in the 1,500m last Olympics) and the owner of two world championship gold medals, plus she has multiple Dutch, European and world records to her name. What’s so impressive is not simply that Hassan has so many world records, but also the breadth of her success. Her shortest record is over 1,000m (her time of 2:34.68 is the Dutch record). Jumping up to the 1,500m, she has the European best of 3:51.95, and her mile PB of 4:12.33 is the world record. The European records in the 3,000m, 5,000m, 10,000m and half-marathon all belong to Hassan, and she owns the one-hour world record, too. 

With so much success over so many distances, she will likely do something amazing in the marathon. It shouldn’t be a surprise if it takes her a race or two to get into the marathon mindset (going from the half to full marathon is a big jump, even for the world’s best runners), but it also won’t be a surprise if she ends up running one of the fastest marathon debuts in history on April 23. 

Yalemzerf Yehualaw, Brigid Kosgei headline stellar women's London Marathon field

Ethiopia's Yalemzerf Yehualaw will defend her London Marathon title in April, with world record holder Brigid Kosgei and Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya also set to run, organisers said on Thursday.

Reigning Olympic 10,000m and 5,000m champion Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands will make her marathon debut at the age of 30, with 1,500m world record holder Genzebe Dibaba, 2016 Olympic 10,000m champion Almaz Ayana and Berlin Marathon champion Tigist Assefa also taking part.

Home hopes will be carried by Britain's Eilish McColgan, the Commonwealth Games 10,000m champion, who will also be making her marathon debut.

"My victory at last year's TCS London Marathon was a day I will never forget. I can't wait to go back to London and be part of this amazing team," world 10km record holder Yehualaw said.

Hassan said she was considering both track and marathon options ahead of next year's Olympic Games in Paris.

"I need to test myself over the marathon distance... I'm really excited to be making my marathon debut. It will be a step into the unknown in many ways for me but I'm looking forward to it," she added.

Race director Hugh Brasher is delighted with the strength of the field.

"This is quite simply the greatest women's field ever assembled for a marathon – arguably the greatest field ever assembled for a women's distance race," he said.

"We have two reigning Olympic champions, three world record holders and multiple national record holders, in addition to an incredibly strong British contingent led by Eilish McColgan."

Kenyan Edna Kiplagat eyes second title in Boston

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

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

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

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

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

Injured Jepchirchir will be missing in action.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2022 - the year when international road racing got back to normal

There have been big city races with mass participation, high-profile clashes between the world’s elite distance runners, and numerous records broken across a range of distances.

Road running is back in a big way.

While some World Athletics Label road races in 2022 still had to be postponed or adapted in the face of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, road running as a whole is almost back to normal.

Nine Elite Platinum Label marathons have been held already this year, with the 10th and final one due to take place in Valencia on 4 December.

World Athletics Elite Platinum marathons in 2022

Tokyo – 6 March

Winners: Brigid Kosgei (KEN) 2:16:02 CR, Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) 2:02:40 CRWorld record-holders Brigid Kosgei and Eliud Kipchoge got their years off to a great start, winning in the Japanese capital with course records.Finishers: 18,272

Nagoya – 13 March

Winner: Ruth Chepngetich (KEN) 2:17:18 CRAfter an enthralling tussle with Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter, Ruth Chepngetich prevailed in 2:17:18, breaking the course record in the world’s largest women-only marathons.Finishers: 8698

Seoul – 17 April

Winners: Joan Chelimo Melly (KEN) 2:18:04 CR, Mosinet Geremew (ETH) 2:04:43 CREventual winners Joan Chelimo Melly and Mosinet Geremew were pushed all the way to course records in the Korean capital in two close races. Geremew won by six seconds, while Melly finished eight seconds ahead of her nearest rival.

Boston – 18 April

Winners: Peres Jepchirchir (KEN) 2:21:01, Evans Chebet (KEN) 2:06:51Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir maintained her winning streak to win in one of the world’s most prestigious races, finishing just four seconds ahead of Ethiopia’s Ababel Yeshaneh. Evans Chebet enjoyed a more comfortable victory in the men’s race.Finishers: 24,607

Berlin – 25 September

Winners: Tigist Assefa (ETH) 2:15:37 CR, Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) 2:01:09 WROlympic champion Eliud Kipchoge returned to the site of his last world record-breaking performance and improved on the mark by 30 seconds, setting a world record of 2:01:09. Meanwhile, Tigist Assefa smashed the women’s course record – and Ethiopian record – with her 2:15:37 victory.Finishers: 34,879

London – 2 October

Winners: Yalemzerf Yehualaw (ETH) 2:17:26, Amos Kipruto (KEN) 2:04:39Yalemzerf Yehualaw got the better of defending champion Joyciline Jepkosgei in an enthralling duel, while Amos Kipruto made a similar late-race break to take the men’s title.Finishers: 40,578

Chicago – 9 October

Winners: Ruth Chepngetich (KEN) 2:14:18 WL, Benson Kipruto (KEN) 2:04:24Ruth Chepngetich came within seconds of the world record to win in 2:14:18, the second-fastest time in history. Benson Kipruto, winner in Boston last year, added another US big city marathon win to his collection.Finishers: 39,420

Amsterdam – 16 October

Winners: Almaz Ayana (ETH) 2:17:20 CR, Tsegaye Getachew (ETH) 2:04:49Ethiopia’s 2016 Olympic 10,000m champion Almaz Ayana ran the fastest marathon debut in history to win in the Dutch capital, holding off former track rival and compatriot Genzebe Dibaba. Tsegaye Getachew made it an Ethiopian double, winning by just five seconds from Titus Kipruto.Finishers: 12,669

New York City – 6 November

Winners: Sharon Lokedi (KEN) 2:23:23, Evans Chebet (KEN) 2:08:41Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi pulled off one of the biggest road-running surprises of 2022, winning the New York City Marathon on her debut at the distance and beating many established stars of the sport. Evans Chebet added to his Boston win from earlier in the year.Finishers: 47,839

Valencia – 4 December

Elite field: includes Letesenbet Gidey, Sutume Kebede, Tiki Gelana, Tigist Girma, Etagegne Woldu, Amane Shankule and Tadelech Bekele in the women’s race, and Getaneh Molla, Tamirat Tola, Dawit Wolde, Jonathan Korir, Hiskel Tewelde, Chalu Deso and Gabriel Geay in the men’s race.Places: 30,000

For the masses

It’s not just elite runners who have been able to enjoy top-quality road racing. Events in most corners of the world have been able to stage mass races of some sort in 2022.

That looks set to continue in 2023 too, not just with Label road races but also at World Athletics Series events.

Peres Jepchirchir named chief guest for Great Ethiopian Run

Reigning Olympic marathon champion Peres Jepchirchir is the guest of honor for this years’ edition of the Sofi malt Great Ethiopian Run International 10km road race set for Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The race will see up to 500 elite athletes compete in both men and women categories with more than 40,000 participants expected to run in three waves of red, green and yellow which symbolises the Ethiopian flag.

Ethiopian athletics legend Haile Gebrselassie, who is a two-time Olympic 10,000m champion started the race 20 years ago with the first edition taking place in 2001. Local athletes have dominated all editions since then.

Jepchirchir, who is also the Boston Marathon champion, is excited to be gracing the race in what will be her first visit to Ethiopia.

“I’m glad to be invited for the Great Ethiopian Run International 10km road race as a guest of honour and I would love to meet with Haile and get some tips from him. I have not been to Ethiopia and I’m looking forward to also interact with my competitors and share one or two things concerning the sport,” said Jepchirchir.

Race General Manager Dagmawit Amare told Nation Sport the race is a symbol of unity and they are happy to host another  event.

“Every year in November, is the month that we are proud to be Ethiopians and in the past 21 years, the race has brought joy and unity in athletics. This year we expect more than 40,000 participants including 500 elite athletes from Uganda, Kenya, and Eritrea,” said Dagmawit.

According to the Runners World, the race held in Addis Ababa annually is possibly one of the best in the world where there is a mix of elite and fun runners.

The Great Ethiopian Run also organizes Hawassa Half Marathon, Women 5km race in March, Europe Day children races in May and Entoto Park Predator Run, which is held every month in Addis Ababa, IFH Relay Races and Great Bokoji Run.

Also invited for the event is two-time Boston Marathon champion Moses Tanui. He is expected to hold discussions for a partnership between Great Ethiopian Run and the Eldoret City Marathon, which is his brainchild.

Viola Lagat will be heading to the New York City Marathon for the second time hoping to improve on her second place finish in last year’s race

Viola Cheptoo Lagat, the younger sister of Kenyan-born US distance running legend Bernard Lagat had set base for the last three months in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County.

This Sunday’s race in the “Big Apple” will be her third over the marathon distance.

“Last year, it was a dream come true because I was debuting in the marathon and coming in second alongside such great athletes competing was just amazing. It gave me a reason to continue working hard,” said Lagat.

She did not change her training programme but wants to lower her personal best time.

Obiri makes debut

Other Kenyans lining up at Central Park on Sunday will be two-time world marathon champion Edna Kiplagat, Grace Kahura and Hellen Obiri. Obiri, a two-time world 5,000 metres champion and twice Olympic silver medallist over the distance, will be making her marathon debut.

“Competing with a great name like Edna Kiplagat is an inspiration. I’m still young in marathon because I need to know what time should I react and what time I should increase my pace compared to her who has done more races, she is sure of what she is doing,” Lagat added.

Lagat has good memories of last year’s race hailing Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir for pushing her to the podium at Central Park.

“I started slow in the race, but the most amazing thing is that my body started reacting well and I surged forward steadily and, to my surprise, I managed to get to where Jepchirchir was. She asked me if the pace she was doing was fine with me and I told her I was comfortable. She really encouraged me,” explained Lagat.

Tips from Keitany

Lagat has also been taking notes from four-time New York Marathon champion Mary Keitany who has been giving her tips on how to overcome the tough New York course.

Lagat started her 2022 season with a sixth place in Boston Marathon in April, her preparations affected by a bout of Covid-19 which slowed her training.

“When I started my training in January, I had difficulty. I just trained for two months and that affected my performance in April,” she said.

Lagat has planned with her coach to attack the Abott Marathon Majors series which, besides New York, also features the London, Tokyo, Berlin and Chicago marathons.

“I would like to ask Kenyans and all our fans to always pray for us as we line up for the race. Personally, I’m doing this for Peres Jepchirchir who pulled out of the race due to injury. We are praying for her to heal as soon as possible,” said Lagat who is a former 1,500 meters specialist.

She ranks Obiri as the dark horse, arguing that anyone making a debut is capable of upsetting the applecart.