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 document holder, Des Linden, that it will be her final aggressive street marathon. As a part of that announcement, she indicated that she plans to pursue a profession in path working and ultrarunning. Linden selected to exit on high, working 2:26 on the day, putting seventeenth girl general, and profitable the ladies’s 40-to-44 age group.
She informed iRunFar, “My objective 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 may crack 2:26. I didn’t get it executed, however acquired fairly shut, so I used to be pleased with it. I used to be additionally seventeenth and by no means actually in competition, which helped validate my emotions that it’s time to maneuver on and check out new issues.”
She elaborated, “I’m nonetheless comparatively fast, however the street scene has exploded up to now few years. Everyone seems to be working so quick, and I simply don’t have the identical tempo because the entrance contenders.”
Linden has a protracted 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 gained the race in 2018, underneath terrible climate circumstances with rain, chilly, and wind, exhibiting her grit.
Des Linden on the 2025 Boston Marathon, with tempo knowledge from Coros. Photograph: Coros
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 function 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 by means of 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 struggle, 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 working 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 working and ultrarunning for a while now. Reality be informed, she’s already experimented exterior of street marathoning. The 2-time Olympian set the ladies’s 50k world document on April 13, 2021, in Eugene, Oregon, at 2:59:54, making her the primary girl to interrupt the three-hour barrier. 4 years on, the document 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 working. She informed the “Singletrack” podcast, “It was wonderful. You get to a spot like that and also you’re simply so impressed by it.”
Now three extra years later, it seems the suitable 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 beloved it, however I’m prepared for a recent problem. Even when I change into no good at it, attempting one thing new and attending to run in lovely 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 working the enduring 100 miler herself. She mentioned, “So long as it seems to be 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 so much about if I wish to focus my consideration there or not.”
With regard to extra quick 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 buddies, and have executed loads of path working 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 she or he is a learner. I can see her welcoming new coaching components with a smile and likewise embracing the unpredictability of ultrarunning. The mixture of her present pace and skill to endure will set her aside from many.”
When requested what recommendation she would provide 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 likewise 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 stay up for that huge influence.
Many because of Coros, for offering tempo knowledge on Linden’s 2025 Boston Marathon, and for serving to to facilitate this interview.