The [Marathon] Results Are In 🗳️

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Compiled by David Melly, Paul Snyder and Jasmine Fehr.

What We Learned From The 2024 NYC Marathon 🏁

To paraphrase a famous New Yorker, this race had everything. 

Olympic medalists. Track and field legends. Early surges and late kicks. Unpredictable, but still wildly satisfying endings. And interesting narratives throughout the men’s and women’s elite field, from New York newcomer Jess McClain to the ageless Edna Kiplagat and everyone in between.

On the men’s side, Dutchman Abdi Nageeye bounced back from Olympic disappointment to claim his first World Marathon Major title after more than a decade of trying. The women’s saw the return of a legend and the dethroning of a champion as Sheila Chepkirui picked up her first WMM title by beating reigning champ Hellen Obiri and all-time track great Vivian Cheruiyot. And up and down the elite results, it seemed like every result told an interesting story about where we are in the event after a banner year on the roads.

Experience on tough courses pays off. Here’s a fun stat from this year’s New York Marathon: the only man among the top five finishers who hadn’t already won the race in years prior was this year’s champion. Evans Chebet (2022 champ) finished second, followed by Albert Korir (2021 champ), Tamirat Tola (2023 champ), and a resurgent Geoffrey Kamworor (2017 and 2019 champ). Clearly, having run New York well in the past is a pretty good predictor of future success. The women’s podium wasn’t quite as unambiguously tilted toward experience, but Obiri has now finished sixth, first, and third in three attempts and Cheruiyot, who’s got experience to spare as a 41-year-old, seven-time global champion, finished second back in 2018. But perhaps the best example came back in 11th place, where 41-year-old Des Linden continues to bat above her average in tough marathon races in her fifth New York appearance.

But also… so does talent. Sure, having logged a few dozen miles through the five boroughs can be a leg up. But when those legs are genetically predisposed to distance-running excellence, you’ve got a pretty good shot of nailing it on the first try. And that’s just what Sheila Chepkirui did, proving that just because you’ve run well on flat, fast courses doesn’t mean you can’t also run well over hills. Before her win in New York, Chepkirui had run four marathons and her SLOWEST time was 2:19:31. So it can’t be that surprising to see her handing Hellen Obiri a rare L, even if she’d never ventured through the Central Park hills before. Similarly, neither Conner Mantz nor Clayton Young had tackled the Verrazzano Bridge prior to Sunday, but the Utah-based duo clearly have a magic combination of talent, coaching guidance, and indefatigable self-belief that is keeping them atop the American marathoning heap these days.

CJ Albertson is one of a kind. Many Olympians this year squeezed a third marathon into the traditional spring/fall race schedule, but CJ Albertson, who didn’t even make the Olympics, raced four high-level marathons in 2024: the Trials (Feb. 3, 5th: 2:10:07), Boston (Apr. 15, 7th: 2:09:53), Chicago (Oct. 13, 7th: 2:08:17), and NYC (Nov. 3, 10th: 2:10:57). While missing the team was surely a big disappointment, Albertson still put together one of the best seasons by an American in recent history, finishing top 10 in three marathon majors, clocking a lifetime best, and moving to No. 9 on the U.S. all-time list. Albertson is no stranger to hard efforts close together after his two 2:11s one week apart last December, but his Chicago/NYC double was particularly impressive given the level of competition. In 2021, when Kenenisa Bekele ran Berlin and NYC, he finished higher (3rd and 6th), but Albertson averaged a faster time across his two fall marathons (2:09:37 vs. 2:09:49) with two weeks less turnaround time.

Conservative racing up front is great for Americans. Both the men’s and women’s elite fields played it relatively safe over the first half of the race, with few real attacks before mile 16 and no truly fast miles. As a result, 21 women and 15 men were within six seconds of the lead at half way, including a whole bunch of Americans who, frankly, would not have been able to hang on if any of the 2:03/2:17 runners had set out on PR pace. While the eventual podium runners did separate out over the second half, the favorable weather and conservative early pace set up the top Americans for success. All six Americans who ended up in the top ten ran small negative splits, and veteran racers like Kellyn Taylor (74:00-73:59) get bonus points for achieving a nearly perfect pace job, even as she navigated NYC’s hills and turns.

The new World Championship standards are pretty dang hard. In order to qualify for the 2025 World Championships in the marathon, participants must do one of three things: 1) hit the auto marks of 2:06:30/2:23:30, 2) finish top 5 in a World Marathon Major, or 3) get selected by world ranking. We won’t know how rankings shake out for Tokyo until much, much later, so anyone hoping to lock in their September 2025 travel will have to pursue one of the first two options. Both Conner Mantz and Sara Vaughn were close, finishing sixth place only 11 and 26 seconds, respectively, out of fifth. But after all was said and done, there are still zero American men and only four American women with the standard today.

There’s no clear best marathoner in the world right now. As we mentioned last week, Tamirat Tola and Hellen Obiri had the opportunity to solidify their spots as the top marathoners in the world by defending their titles in New York, and while they ran well… getting beat (Obiri finished second and Tola finished fourth) does not help their cases. On the women’s side, with no double victors in the WMM series, Ruth Chepngetich and her 2:09:56 is probably the world No. 1, but in her 9th-place London performance only six months ago, she lost to the eventual Berlin champ (Tigist Ketema), the NYC champ (Chepkirui), and the Olympic silver medalist (Tigst Assefa). Throw in Obiri, Olympic champ Sifan Hassan, and London champ Peres Jepchirchir, and good luck picking a true favorite in any of those head-to-head matchups. On the men’s side, Abdi Nageeye has the blemish of an Olympic DNF on his resume, but he did win Rotterdam – not a major, but a big, competitive marathon nevertheless – in 2:04:45 earlier this spring. Tola is certainly in the conversation, but he’s also got a DNF this year (in London) and hasn’t run super, super fast. Next year’s World Marathon Majors will continue to be must-watch TV simply because there’s no foregone conclusions in the event right now.

Happy Trails, Jenny Simpson 👋

When Jenny Simpson assumed the lead around mile eight of Sunday’s New York City Marathon, in many ways, it was a familiar sight. 

Over the course of her 14-year-long professional career Simpson won the Fifth Avenue Mile a whopping eight times, including every installment of the race between 2013 and 2019. No runner has ever been more dominant on the city’s asphalt. Hell, there may not have ever been another athlete as reliably great when competing within the five boroughs. In a just world, she would have had the chance to direct the Reggie Miller “choke” gesture toward Spike Lee, standing outside of the Guggenheim looking indignant, while blazing past him en route to any of her signature Fifth Ave wins.

But back to that brief moment in Brooklyn on Sunday. Plenty about that image was unfamiliar, too. 

This wasn’t a mile race. And this wasn’t Peak Jenny Simpson. It was the historically great miler performing a 26.2-mile swan song. Her bid for the lead wasn’t a serious push for contention – it was a final chance to experience the roar of the New York City crowd and hear the slapping of competitors’ feet on the ground behind her. And then it was over. She downshifted and the real race resumed around, then in front of her. 

Simpson held on to run 2:31:54, good for 18th place, and then formally retired from the sport of competitive running. Up next for Simpson? She’s basically going to become the sport’s Guy Fieri, only instead of rollin’ out, lookin’ for America’s greatest diners, drive-ins, and dives, she and her husband Jason will spend 2025 touring the country in their Winnabego, making stops in all 50 states, and exploring the various local running communities and training grounds they have to offer. 

While that sounds objectively awesome and like something probably 90% of our readers would do in a heartbeat given the time and resources, we risk losing sight of Jenny Simpson as the elite competitor she was if we too wholeheartedly embrace her as the traveling runner-storyteller she’s set to become.

You wouldn’t have to work particularly hard to make the case that Simpson is the greatest American female miler of all time. Only Bernard Lagat and his body of work can stake a more obvious claim to top American miler ever. And while Simpson never set a world record – let alone several– like Mary Decker did, their medal counts aren’t too dissimilar, and Simpson’s prime racing years came during a far more globally competitive era than Decker’s (plus, Simpson has never been associated with doping allegations).

Simpson was the first collegiate woman to crack the four-minute barrier for the 1500m and still holds the NCAA record to this day. Her 3:59.90 – and its resilience – is all the more impressive when you remember that it predates super shoes by 10+ years.

A small knock against her collegiate career – aside from her memorable implosion at the 2009 NCAA cross country championships, which came on the heels of a 5th (ultimately upgraded to 4th) place showing at Worlds in the steeple – is that she never won a 1500m or mile title. But given Jenny then-Barringer’s focus on the steeplechase (and three national titles over that distance), it’s understandable.

Similarly, we’ll gloss over her pre-miler era on the pro circuit. (Accomplishments there include: the aforementioned 4th place Worlds steeple showing, an 8th place finish at the Olympics in the steeple as a collegian, a since-broken American record, and a handful of U.S. titles.)

In the 2010s, Simpson’s meal ticket was championship 1500m races. She won the 2014 Diamond League final, plus four other Diamond League 1500m races. And despite wrapping up her career with a relatively modest – again, pre-super shoe – lifetime PB of 3:57.22, she claimed Olympic bronze in 2016 (finishing behind only Faith Kipyegon and Genzebe Dibaba, and ahead of names like Sifan Hassan and Laura Muir). She took second at Worlds twice: in 2013 she lost only to Abeba Aregawi and beat the likes of Kipyegon, Dibaba, and Helen Obiri; and in 2017 she lost only to Kipyegon and beat Caster Semenya, Muir, and Hassan.

But if you had to distill Simpson’s career down to a singular accomplishment, it was winning the 2011 1500m World title. It was a textbook championship-style affair, with lots of pace changes, jostling, tangling of legs that sent a couple athletes – notably Obiri – to the track, and an absolute master class close over the final 150m from Simpson to secure gold. Track fans of a certain age (let’s say 30+) remember Nick Willis’s commitment to riding the rail, Matt Centrowitz’s smooth navigation of a pack, and Mo Farah’s control over the final 400m, but Simpson’s signature was her uncanny ability to perfectly measure effort in all kinds of races to maximize her own chances of a medal.

Greatness in the mile, metric or imperial, really comes down to one thing: did you win a lot? Simpson did. Both domestically and more significantly, on the international stage against pretty damn stout competition. The fact that her PBs barely register as notable against the current crop of 1500m talent makes for, if anything, an even more compelling case for Simpson’s GOAT status. Enduring 1500m success requires tactical brilliance – it’s pretty rare for one athlete to be significantly fitter than the field and thus able to simply run away with races, like Kipyegon currently does. And during the Prime Simpson years she routinely ran down competitors with PBs three or four seconds better.

So as we continue on our sport’s march toward 3:50 being the new 4:00, let’s take a beat to appreciate one of the sport’s all-time great tacticians and most decorated 1500m specialists ever. 

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Q&A With 2:28 Marathoner Molly Bookmyer On Her Journey To Elite Running After Two Brain Surgeries 🎙️

Molly Bookmyer joined Jasmine Fehr for an interview a few weeks after setting a personal best of 2:28:52 to break the tape at the 2024 Twin Cities Marathon. Over the years, Molly has shown a steady progression in the marathon, debuting in 2018 with a time of 2:46 and gradually shaving off minutes each year until finally having her biggest breakthrough yet at Twin Cities. 

Molly’s path to becoming an elite marathoner has been anything but linear. She began as a walk-on at Ohio State, but her running career came to a halt when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. After two brain surgeries and navigating years of challenges and setbacks, Molly has defied the odds to become one of America’s top distance runners. You can read the full interview with Molly here.

Jasmine Fehr: Molly, you just won the 2024 Twin Cities Marathon last month. You ran a new personal best of 2:28 to dip below 2:30 for the first time. Now that it’s been a few weeks, what are your reflections and how are you feeling? 

Molly Bookmyer: Ten days out from the race, my family was going through a hard time because my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly. I was questioning whether or not I should even run the race because it was pretty emotional and sad. 

But I had some time to process it. I wanted to go to the race and just do my best and never give up. I feel like that's what I did; I executed my race plan and stayed in it the whole time. That's what I'm most proud of: not giving up, executing my race plan, taking what the day gave me and making the most of it. 

During your build for this marathon, did you have signs along the way that you were ready for a sub-2:30 performance? Or was that a bit of a shock for you? 

I've had consistent, good training for a while, but I always felt like I would go to these races and wasn't able to put together all the pieces. So this spring the goal was to race more, to build some confidence, and be able to figure out how to put together races at a more competitive level. 

One of my breakthrough weekends was at the Pittsburgh Half Marathon. That course was super difficult. It was raining that day and I actually fell and slipped on the wet ground and I still finished second. Six days later, I came back and ran the 25K championships in a super deep field. I ran a three-minute PR of 1:24 and I think I came through the half in 1:10-high. 

Just being able to race two big races within six days of each other gave me a lot of confidence that my training was going well and that I could execute this race a little bit better. I drew a lot from those experiences along with just having consistent, healthy training going into Twin Cities. 

Earlier in your career, you were a walk-on at Ohio State and then underwent two brain surgeries. You came back to have this amazing marathon career and are continuing to improve race after race. Can you share a little bit about your story? 

I was not very good in high school, but I did have the opportunity to walk-on in college. I only ran for a couple of years; I actually left the team because I was frustrated and got injured a lot. But then I was undergoing tests to figure out why I was getting injured and they actually found a brain tumor in my ventricle. 

In 2015, I had surgery at the Cleveland Clinic to remove the tumor. It was a pretty intense surgery. I lived with my parents. I had some complications and had to go back to the hospital for some time because there was swelling in my brain, so it was a pretty difficult comeback. 

Then three months after my first surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night really sick, throwing up blood. I ended up going to the emergency room and they transported me by ambulance to Cleveland. I underwent emergency brain surgery that night. I had something called hydrocephalus, which is water in the brain that causes all this pressure.

At the time, it never even crossed my mind to be a competitive runner. I was just able to start walking and I started using the treadmill just to get healthy again. Then I started jogging a little bit. Unfortunately later that year, I was running on the treadmill and suffered a seizure, so I had to regroup. I had to start seizure medication, which has some pretty difficult side effects. It took me a while to get used to that, but I used running at that point to get myself healthy and do it because I loved it. It was my stress relief after work. 

At what point did it transition to competitive running at this high level you’ve reached? 

My surgeries were in 2015 and then two years later I got married. Within a month, right when we got back from our honeymoon, my husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer and had to undergo surgeries and treatments. That was when I started running more… not as much as I am right now, but maybe 60 miles a week. I just needed it because I was working full-time and I was his primary caretaker. Running was, again, my stress reliever. 

At the time, I set the goal to run Grandma's Marathon in June 2018. I went to that race and I wore my iPod shuffle, which was totally illegal. You're not supposed to wear headphones, but I knew none of the rules. I got into this group of girls who were shooting for the OTQ standard. I didn't go into the race with any expectation of doing that, but there was just such a good vibe, so I stayed with them and ended up running a 2:46. After that race I was like, ‘Man, if I can run 2:46 after going through all of this, maybe I should try to hit that standard.’ 

I hit the standard later that year and then ran my first U.S. championship race at the 25K when I placed third in 2019.

You mentioned that you were working full-time and running on the side. Do you still work full-time? If you do, how does running fit into your schedule? How do you find balance between the two? 

I still work full-time. It's not easy, but I love training, I love running, and I still want to pursue my absolute best at running. So I just make it work. 

I run twice a day, before and after work. I have a remote job so it makes it a little bit easier because I have some flexibility. I've also been working in corporate America for over ten years, so I have experience. Luckily my management trusts that I’m going to get my work done and that I’m going to do a good job. 

I definitely work really hard and have a lot of pride in my day job – maybe that's what makes me strive at running too, just being a hard worker. It's not easy. But if you want to do something, you can make it work. So that's what I do. 

Looking ahead to future marathons, what are your biggest goals and aspirations and where do you want to take things next in your career? 

The standard just came out for the [2025] World Championships. It's a five-minute drop from where I am right now, which might seem like a lot from the outside. But Twin Cities is a rolling, hilly course, and we didn't have perfect weather. We had some wind, there was a difficult climb at the end, and I ran mostly by myself.

My goal is to run a marathon this spring on a quicker course with some more competition to see if I can run a little bit faster. I plan to keep building my mileage and workouts to keep closing the gap. I mean, everybody keeps running faster. We all have to keep getting faster in order to keep up. 

And I enjoy sharing my story. My background is different from a lot of professional runners. I used to think that was a bad thing, having gone through different experiences and maybe not being fast in high school or college. I think it would be really cool to eventually find a [sponsor] to help share my journey a little more and maybe inspire some people who have had different backgrounds.

Read the full interview here!

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

– Congrats to Chris Chavez on winning this year’s George Hirsch Journalism Award from NYRR! For track & field journalists, it’s like the Bowerman, which is like the Heisman for track athletes.

– In a devastating blow to influencers’ ability to behave obnoxiously, NYRR has retroactively disqualified Matt Choi from the New York City Marathon, and banned him from all future NYRR races, for completing the race accompanied by a phalanx of videographers on electronic Citi Bikes.

– Are you a mean-spirited online troll who loves the Olympics? Great news! Researchers have finally conducted a study on you, and World Athletics has published the findings here. One particularly eye-opening takeaway is that just two athletes received were the targets of 82% of the studied abusive posts.

– Grand Slam Track has continued its hot streak and signed Tsigie Gebreselama and Agnes Ngetich. The women’s long distance Racer contingent has the makings of yet another stacked event group full of top-tier global talent.  

– Bad news for globe-trotting marathoners who have already encased their World Marathon Major six star commemorative medals in silver or some other precious metal: beginning in 2025 there will be a seventh race to complete: Sydney.

– Qualifying criteria for Tokyo ‘25 has been revealed by the World Athletics Council, and it’s once again, kind of a lot to take in. Fortunately, CITIUS MAG has put together a nice explainer piece for you. 

– And now to take a deep breath before launching into a lightning round recap of NCAA P4 cross country conference highlights: At Big 12s, the BYU men took down OSU in an interesting preview of the national team battle, the BYU women won more comfortably – and predictably; OSU’s Brian Musau and WVU’s Ceili McCabe took top individual honors. At ACCs, friend of the newsletter Gary Martin of Virginia and Grace Hartman of NC State each won individually, while Wake Forest pulled off an upset in the men’s team battle, and Notre Dame snapped NC State’s team win streak. At Big 10s, the Wisconsin men – lead by now four-time individual champ Bob Liking – won the team title alongside conference newcomers Oregon, who were likewise led by the individual winner, Silan Ayyilidiz. Finally, the Arkansas men, led by champ Patrick Kiprop, and Alabama women, led by champ Doris Lemngole took home the SEC titles.

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