This April, two-time Olympic marathoner Des Linden isn’t going to be racing within the skilled ladies’s discipline up Heartbreak Hill close to mile 20 of the Boston Marathon, as she’s carried out 12 occasions earlier than — together with in 2018 when she grew to become the primary American to win the occasion in 33 years. As a substitute, she’ll make her method throughout the Sahara Desert throughout the 2026 Marathon des Sables, a week-long stage race in Morocco, maybe working her method up one thing that may be referred to as Despair Dune, or possibly by means of the Desert of Delight, or possibly of Despondence. Regardless, the 155-mile run throughout the desert shall be totally different from something she’s carried out earlier than.
It’s an enormous pivot for 43-year-old Linden, who introduced her retirement from skilled marathoning final 12 months on the 2025 Boston Marathon and turned to path operating and ultrarunning as her subsequent operating enterprise.
Des Linden has traded skilled highway marathoning for a six-day stage race by means of the Moroccan Sahara desert. Photograph: Andy Cochrane
Leap Into the Unknown
Crossover between path operating and highway operating isn’t new, however the sheer measurement of the figurative bounce from racing 26.2 miles on the highway to 155 miles in seven days throughout the Sahara Desert — carrying all of her personal meals and provides — is notable. This isn’t a marathoner making an attempt her luck at a 100 kilometers on buffed-out trails; that is somebody discovering the polar reverse of two.5 hours of threshold operating on moderately flat pavement. However after 18 years of focusing all of her effort on the marathon — with a brief facet quest to set a ladies’s 50k world document throughout the COVID-19 pandemic — it’s straightforward to see why Linden desires to attempt one thing fully totally different.
The Marathon des Sables, which begins on April 5 this 12 months, is a self-sufficient stage race, which means rivals have to hold all of their very own meals and equipment for all the race in a pack with a minimal beginning weight of 14.3 kilos, with the organizers offering solely water and eight-person shelters every night time for camp. The race’s six phases, raced over the sands of the Sahara Desert, vary from about 13 to 51 miles lengthy.
With the Marathon des Sables, Linden has taken as large of a metaphorical leap from highway marathoning as attainable. Photograph: Brooks
Speaking not lengthy earlier than the race begins, Linden appears assured in her preparation and life like concerning the state of affairs. “I believe I might at all times like to have a bit of bit extra time,” she says of her lead-up, however admits in a while, “I believe there’s a bit of little bit of an ignorance-is-bliss sort factor.” She’s carried out a few 100-mile weeks with 22-mile runs within the combine, practiced operating with a 12-pound pack, and carried out some high-turnover exercises so she will tempo her husband on the Boston Marathon three weeks after she will get again.
Whereas the phrase “retirement” is tossed round by the operating media when discussing Linden’s exit from skilled marathoning, it’s clear she’s not prepared to hold up her footwear but and has ambitions within the path world, some even on the buffed-out trails that marathoners-turned-trail-runners are inclined to favor. However like when she began operating professionally in 2006, Linden is approaching this new period of operating much less with particular expectations and extra with curiosity and need to see how good she will truly be at this new sport.
Discovering Stability
Operating — within the type of enjoying soccer — was a part of Linden’s life from a younger age. She adopted her older sister into the game round age 5, and likewise performed softball, which didn’t go well with the younger Linden. “It was form of boring for me,” she says, however in an effort to hold her busy, her dad and mom insisted on one other sport, so she picked up cross nation and monitor in center college. Whereas she performed soccer by means of highschool, she says, “I noticed I wasn’t rising and getting larger, however everybody else was, and I used to be form of getting thrown round.” Exhibiting promise as a runner early on — she broke the 5-minute barrier for the mile as a highschool freshman, which on the time was uncommon — she determined, “It’s most likely safer to simply be a runner.”
Linden discovered operating early on, however balanced it with tutorial pursuits all through faculty. Photograph: Brooks
Linden discovered collegiate operating success at Arizona State College and put a robust emphasis on balancing being a pupil and an athlete. She says, “I believe lots of people go to highschool and put the athlete half first and simply wish to be a runner, they usually simply grow to be very one-dimensional.” Linden took a extra pragmatic and balanced view, “I wasn’t getting paid to [run]. I used to be there to be a pupil as nicely, and that’s actually written into student-athlete.” As a substitute of the monk-like focus that many high athletes undertake, Linden says, “I felt like I did a very good job of getting an incredible faculty expertise, doing social stuff, college stuff, but in addition operating nicely sufficient.” Effectively sufficient meant being a two-time NCAA Division I All-American in monitor and cross nation.
At the same time as a collegiate runner, Linden appeared to grasp that there was a part of life for every little thing, and tempering her effort within the current may gain advantage her down the highway if she have been in a position to run professionally. “I most likely didn’t have the success I may have in faculty, however I additionally knew that if that shift got here afterward, it will be whenever you’re an athlete, then that’s what you concentrate on.”
Full-Dedication Professionalism
After graduating from faculty, Linden made the transfer from Arizona to Michigan to affix the Hansons-Brooks Distance Undertaking, saying, “I had seen quite a few my teammates go on to run professionally, and I simply felt like there was extra left within the tank. I had seen little glimmers of, ‘I may very well be actually good at this.’”
After rising up balancing a number of sports activities and a collegiate profession by which the scholar was valued as a lot because the athlete, Linden was able to go all-in on operating. “I knew if I switched the mentality to being a full-on athlete, I may give myself a bit of time to see if I may thrive with that.”
The identical method that faculty was a time to get an training, Linden approached the bounce to skilled operating as “a brief window the place you get to discover [professional running], and if it’s not for me, that’s okay. I can transfer on. However a minimum of I answered the query of, ‘If I am going all in and spend this time and power on it, how good can I be?’”
After faculty, Linden was prepared to completely decide to operating. Photograph: Brooks
After 18 years as knowledgeable marathoner, Linden bought her reply. Whereas initially Linden fancied herself a 10k runner and “wasn’t significantly fascinated about [the marathon] in the beginning of the shift,” the longer distance made lots of sense each logistically and financially. Plus, she says, “It regarded extra enjoyable. My teammates have been doing it. And I assumed that the roads have been form of a greater profession path for me.”
The beginning of this dedication to the marathon noticed Linden debut on the distance on the 2007 Boston Marathon, which was the ladies’s USA Nationwide Championships that 12 months, and the place she positioned nineteenth. She positioned thirteenth on the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2008, in addition to fifth on the Chicago Marathon, an occasion she’d go on to set an American masters marathon document at in 2023 after she turned 40. She certified for and ran the marathon on the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, withdrawing from the previous because of harm and inserting seventh on the latter. In 2018, at her sixth operating of the race and below wet circumstances, Linden received the Boston Marathon, a long-time purpose. She was the primary American to take action in 33 years.
When the COVID-19 pandemic paused racing in 2020, Linden refocused on pursuing the ladies’s 50k world document. In 2021, she set a brand new customary on the Brooks Operating 50k and Marathon, turning into the primary lady to interrupt three hours by operating 2:59:54.
Linden setting a brand new 50k world document in Oregon in 2021. Photograph: Brooks Operating
When marathon racing resumed, so did Linden, and he or she continued operating on the entrance of elite fields. However she knew that her time within the sport as knowledgeable needed to come to an finish sooner or later. She says a lot of it got here all the way down to not with the ability to run on the identical pace as she used to. “It was evaluating myself to myself. Up to now, I used to be chasing PRs, operating within the entrance, and making an attempt to win Boston. After which it was combating to simply keep the identical — to not lose a step. So it grew to become doing virtually 20% extra work to remain at 80% capability.”
Shifting Priorities, Shifting Surfaces, Shifting Distances
In 2025, Linden knew it was time to step away from skilled marathoning. She says, “I liked it, and I might hold doing it if I have been on the high of my sport,” but in addition needed to be life like concerning the ever-increasing pace of the occasion and the truth that after she’d achieved her largest purpose within the sport — profitable Boston — there was the ever-lingering query of the “why” of continuous. Then, on the morning of the 2025 Boston Marathon, 18 years after she’d first run it, she introduced her retirement and went on to run a 2:26:19, inserting seventeenth in her ultimate skilled marathon.
Linden on the 2025 Boston Marathon, simply after asserting her retirement from skilled marathoning. Photograph: Coros
A bit over a month later, she discovered herself on the Western States 100 course for the occasion’s Memorial Day Coaching Camp. Just a few months earlier, with no concept of Linden’s imminent retirement, Brooks teammate Joe “Stringbean” McConaughy had requested her if she would tempo him on the 2026 Western States 100. Realizing that by then she’d be nicely away from her ultimate Boston Marathon, she agreed, however rightly needed to see the part she’d be pacing — the 16 miles from Foresthill to Rucky Chucky — forward of time. She’d been sandbagged by path runners earlier than, being advised that one thing can be runnable after which being taken on one thing she says, “I really feel is bananas. I’m like, ‘That is climbing!’”
However her Western States 100 pacing gig was extremely runnable, and the day left an impression. She recounts the traditional ultrarunner expertise, saying, “Even being on the market for the tiny quantity I used to be, I’d be like, That is the dumbest factor that folks may do. Why would you do that? It’s the center of the day, and it’s so sizzling. After which we’d cool off, hit an help station. I’d be like, That is a lot enjoyable. I’m having an superior time.” Like many who catch the ultrarunning bug, she says, “I believe in the end I left with, That is an intriguing puzzle that I might like to try to sort out.”
Marathon des Sables
In some ways, it’s not arduous to think about why Linden selected one thing just like the Marathon des Sables as her first large post-marathon purpose. She says, “It’s simply so international, and it’s so totally different. And it calls for that I prepare in a method that’s not marathon coaching. And so it permits me to form of set that marathon stuff apart for a bit.”
She signed up for the race final April and recruited her good good friend Magda Boulet to run it too. Like Linden, Boulet was a extremely profitable marathon runner earlier than switching to trails and profitable the 2015 Western States 100 and 2019 Leadville 100 Mile. In between, she received the 2018 Marathon des Sables. Whereas Boulet had lengthy been discussing trails with Linden, it was Linden who satisfied Boulet to join Marathon des Sables once more, and never the opposite method round. In keeping with Linden, “She didn’t hesitate as a lot as I assumed she would.”
Linden operating on trails in New Zealand. Photograph: Andy Cochrane
Given the distinctiveness of Marathon des Sables, Linden has been leaning on Boulet’s expertise for gear and vitamin. She did a sweat check to dial in her electrolyte steadiness earlier than she left, and he or she examined a customized pack. She is intimidated by the space: “I’ve by no means carried out 100k, so already that’s a giant bounce in distance for me. And you then sandwich it in between a few lengthy days already, and you then put in all the opposite elements of vitamin, or lack of sleep,” Linden pauses, “I don’t actually know, I’m simply going to should take it day-to-day.”
Future Objectives
Linden is relishing the chance to be taught one thing new after racing the identical occasion for thus a few years. She says, “It’s been very easy to remain motivated and be like, ‘What’s the subsequent factor that I can tackle as a problem, and the way else can I push myself, and what else can I study myself, and what else can I study operating?’” If there’s one factor for sure, the Marathon des Sables will assist reply a minimum of a few of these questions.
“It’s form of cool that there are simply so many alternative methods to get pleasure from our sport, they usually’re all very totally different and distinctive. And when one factor’s carried out, you don’t should be carried out with the game. There are all types of various methods to maintain exploring.”
Linden has discovered a brand new solution to keep within the sport — much less as a competitor and extra as a runner. Photograph: Andy Cochrane
Linden has come a good distance from enjoying soccer as a child and operating on the facet. “I really feel like once I began, I wouldn’t even say I categorize myself as a runner. I’m a competitor. I wish to compete, and operating was simply what it occurred to be.” Though Linden nonetheless talks about high-mileage weeks and sweat testing and coaching, she additionally says, “Now I see myself as a runner, the place possibly it’s for exploration, possibly it’s to de-stress, possibly it’s for efficiency, however I believe I’ve developed from competitor to runner. And I believe that runner half — so long as I can keep wholesome — will stick round for a really very long time.”
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