On the morning of Monday, April 21, 2025, as some 30,000 runners had been lacing as much as run the 2025 Boston Marathon, information broke from former champion and present ladies’s 50-kilometer world file holder, Des Linden, that it might be her final aggressive highway marathon. As a part of that announcement, she indicated that she plans to pursue a profession in path operating and ultrarunning. Linden selected to exit on high, operating 2:26 on the day, putting seventeenth lady general, and successful the ladies’s 40-to-44 age group.
She informed iRunFar, “My aim was to compete all day lengthy and ensure I didn’t look again at a single second and query if I gave it my all. I believed on an A/A+ day I might crack 2:26. I didn’t get it executed, however bought fairly shut, so I used to be proud of it. I used to be additionally seventeenth and by no means actually in rivalry, which helped validate my emotions that it’s time to maneuver on and take a look at new issues.”
She elaborated, “I’m nonetheless comparatively fast, however the highway scene has exploded prior to now few years. Everyone seems to be operating so quick, and I simply don’t have the identical tempo because the entrance contenders.”
Linden has an extended historical past with the Boston Marathon, which she has now run 12 occasions, starting together with her debut on the distance in 2007. In 2011, she positioned second to Caroline Kilel of Kenya by a margin of simply two seconds. She received the race in 2018, beneath terrible climate situations with rain, chilly, and wind, exhibiting her grit.
In an announcement within the “Boston Globe” newspaper on the morning of the 2025 Boston Marathon, Linden paid tribute to the enduring race, which has performed a formative position in her journey as a runner: “Pricey Boston: I made my debut at 26.2 in your roads in 2007 and fell in love — with the gap and with the Boston Marathon … 4 years later, we had been in it collectively as you lifted me up via the Newton Hills, carried me as I turned proper on Hereford and left on Boylston, and introduced me inside two heartbreaking seconds of victory … However you by no means gave up on me, inviting me to maintain exhibiting up. Hell, you embraced the combat, as a result of Boston is aware of grit. The victory in 2018 wasn’t simply mine, it was ours.”
The 2025 Boston Marathon was Linden’s twenty ninth marathon, and her quickest run in Boston since 2017. So removed from slowing down, she could possibly be making the transfer into path operating at nonetheless near her peak.
Linden, who’s hoping to tempo Brooks teammate Joe McConaughy on the 2025 Western States 100, has been planning the transition into path operating and ultrarunning for a while now. Fact be informed, she’s already experimented outdoors of highway marathoning. The 2-time Olympian set the ladies’s 50k world file on April 13, 2021, in Eugene, Oregon, at 2:59:54, making her the primary lady to interrupt the three-hour barrier. 4 years on, the file is unbroken.
Then, in 2022, she traveled to Chamonix, France, for the UTMB Mont Blanc pageant, to get a really feel for the world of path operating. She informed the “Singletrack” podcast, “It was superb. You get to a spot like that and also you’re simply so impressed by it.”
Now three extra years later, it seems the precise time has come for her to make that change. She defined to iRunFar, “I’m very path curious! Leaving the roads actually opens the door to check out new surfaces and distances and I’m fairly enthusiastic about that. I’ve no clue if I’ve the instruments to make me profitable on the paths, or at any distance over 50k, however the thought of being curious and a bit scared about testing it out is enjoyable. Marathons actually turned a routine, and I liked it, however I’m prepared for a recent problem. Even when I transform no good at it, attempting one thing new and attending to run in stunning locations nonetheless sounds fairly nice.”
As the subsequent step in her exploration of the path sphere, Linden will attend the Western States 100 Coaching Camp on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend, to get a really feel for the course, and to make sure she is assured and ready to tempo McConaughy. She hasn’t dominated out someday operating the enduring 100 miler herself. She mentioned, “So long as it seems like I can handle my part of the pacing duties I’ll head out and assist with pacing. Getting a really feel for the occasion and the expertise will inform me lots about if I wish to focus my consideration there or not.”
With regard to extra instant race plans for 2025, she mentioned: “Nothing deliberate but. I do have an entry to Tunnel Hill 50 Mile, however I haven’t determined but if that’s what I wish to concentrate on this fall.”
Amongst high path runners who’ve beforehand converted from the roads to trails is U.S. Olympian Magda Boulet, winner of the 2015 Western States 100, 2018 Marathon des Sables, and the 2019 Leadville 100 Mile. Boulet and Linden are associates, and have executed loads of path operating collectively over the previous couple of years. Boulet was excited for Linden’s enterprise and informed iRunFar: “Desi has a vibrant and enjoyable future forward of her on the path scene. She is gritty, powerful as nails, and he or she is a learner. I can see her welcoming new coaching parts with a smile and in addition embracing the unpredictability of ultrarunning. The mixture of her present pace and talent to endure will set her aside from many.”
When requested what recommendation she would supply Linden, Boulet mentioned: “Desi has a reasonably darn good recipe of what it takes to achieve success. One piece of recommendation I’ve for her is to maintain exhibiting as much as run adventures with me, and in addition make the Western States 100 [where Boulet also serves as a member of the nonprofit organization’s board] her 100-mile debut.”
We can be watching this area for Des Linden to interrupt into the path and extremely scene much more, and we look ahead to that large impression.
Many because of Coros, for offering tempo knowledge on Linden’s 2025 Boston Marathon, and for serving to to facilitate this interview.
