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(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. NORTHPORT, N.Y. (20-Sep) -- On a spectacular morning for road running in this harbor-front town on Long Island's North Shore, Ednah Kurgat and Anthony Rotich of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program (WCAP) won the 45th edition of the Great Cow Harbor 10K going away.  Kurgat, 34, the 2023 USATF cross country champion, broke away from her key rival just ahead of the 5K mark and ran solo to the finish line on Main Street in 32:11.  Rotich, also 34, a three-time NCAA steeplechase champion with the University of Texas at El Paso, fought off a late-race challenge from former University of Kansas star Chandler Gibbens to win in 28:27.  Both athletes won $7000 in prize money, including $500 primes for leading at halfway. ROTICH RAN SMARTER THIS YEAR Rotich competed at this race last year when organizers hosted the USATF 10K Championships.  Although he finished fifth, he was disappointed with how he executed his race. "I was here last year and I made some stupid moves here and there," Rotich told Race Results Weekly.  "Today I told myself I'll be patient.  When I make a move, that's it." Rotich stayed tucked in the lead pack in the early going when James Quattlebaum was setting the pace.  Quattlebaum split the severely downhill first mile in 4:24 with both Rotich and Gibbens right behind him.  At that point the lead pack had ten athletes, but the group would whittle down to eight when the race turned up the notoriously steep James Street Hill in the second mile.  Passing some of the town's most expensive homes with expansive views of the harbor, Rotich touched the lead for the first time just ahead of the three mile mark.  The former Kenyan scooped up the $500 halfway prime (14:26) and started to scoot away from the field. "Last year I made the same move, but I realized that my body shut down after that," Rotich said.  He continued: "I told myself when I made the move at 5K that will be it.  But I was surprised that one of the guys actually followed me." Gibbens, who did not surge at 5K, slowly closed-up on Rotich using the downhill on Eaton's Neck Road, and the two athletes were together at 4 miles (18:22).  Shuaib Aljabaly of Hansons-Brooks ODP was in third. "This is like my first race in eight months, or something," Gibbens told Race Results Weekly.  "I really wanted to put myself in that front group, kind of keep them close, and try to make a move at the end."  He added: "I just wanted to keep him in touch. When he started to make that move at the 5-K mark I just wanted to keep him where I could get him within the next mile or so." The mostly flat fifth mile went in 4:43 (23:05) and Rotich and Gibbens were still together.  Just after the five mile mark when the course turns right on to Main Street, Rotich used the little uphill there to get a jump on Gibbens.  The move stuck, and within a few seconds he was 30 meters up the road. "I knew there was still one more hill to go," Rotich explained.  "And I told myself, that is where I'm going to be making the move.  I did not want it to come (to the) downhill because anybody can run downhill." Rotich had the final downhill to the finish all to himself.  He waved once to the crowd, and when he arrived at the finish line he stopped abruptly at the tape, straightened his posture, and gave a military salute with his right hand. "That's for the Army," Rotich said.  "Every time you have a victory it is like that you are saluting the flag.  That's what I did today." Gibbens held on for second in 28:36, and former Utah Valley University athlete Habtamu Cheney passed Aljabaly to take third in 28:40.  Aljabaly was fourth, another seven seconds behind, and Merga Gemeda of Minnesota Distance Elite rounded out the top five in 28:58.  Quattlebaum, the early leader, was seventh in 29:10. NO DRAMA FOR KURGAT Kurgat was mostly worried about the threat from three-time Chevron Houston Marathon champion Biruktayit Degefa, and decided to put the former Ethiopian behind her early.  She moved away from her rival late in the third mile and had a four-second lead by the 5K point, 16:22 to 16:26.  From there she only had men for company, and time-trialed to the finish line to get the win, her first of the year. "It was pretty windy so I tried to hold on as much as I could," Kurgat told Race Results Weekly.  "Despite that, I was able to win.  I know it has been a long, rough season for me, but it is good to close it with a win." Degefa finished second in 32:31, and third place went to Kassie Parker in 32:57.  Steph Bruce, 41, finished fourth and was the top masters finisher in 33:03.  Lesley Boyd rounded out the top five in 33:12. SOLD OUT RACE Today's race sold out at 5000 entries in June, according to race officials.  A total of 4320 athletes crossed the finish line today, down slightly from 4524 in 2024.  The 2026 race is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, September 19. PHOTO: Ednah Kurgat and Anthony Rotich of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program were the winners of the 2025 Great Cow Harbor 10K (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)

(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. TOKYO (14-Sep) -- After two hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds the women's marathon at the 20th World Athletics Championships had yet to be decided.  Two of the best marathoners in history, 2021 Olympic champion Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya and 2024 Olympic silver medalist Tigist Assefa of Ethiopia, had entered National Stadium with barely any daylight between them.  It was anyone's race. "I was so exhausted," Jepchirchir told reporters when asked to talk about the final 300 meters of the race on the track. Assefa made the first move, passing her Kenyan rival on the backstretch, but she did not shake her.  Jepchirchir stayed on her heels and tried to gather the strength for just one more push forward after running nearly 42 kilometers in hot and very humid conditions. "At 100 meters when I saw the finishing line... let me try if I'm going to win," Jepchirchir said she told herself.  "Thank God that I managed." Rounding the final bend Jepchirchir shot ahead of Assefa who, despite being a former Olympic 800-meter runner with a 1:59.24 personal best, had no answer.  Spreading her arms, Jepchirchir sailed through the finish line to win her first world marathon title (and her fourth overall world title) in 2:24:43.  She had also won the world half-marathon title three times. "I feel grateful," said Jepchirchir, who thought of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games even though the marathon was held in Sapporo.  "I feel good memories here; I was not expecting that.  I love Tokyo." Assefa crossed two seconds later to take the silver, a bittersweet result for the former world record holder. "I guessed that it would be all about a sprint in the last 100 meters," she told the flash quotes team after the race.  "It was the same at Paris Olympics when I also finished second and lost to Sifan (Hassan).  But I don't like to think I lost gold. I always try to be positive and think that I won the silver." How those two women arrived to the stadium together is a tale of two races.  For the first 28 kilometers, American Susanna Sullivan ran alone through the streets of Tokyo.  The main contenders were content to stay together and not push the pace, and Sullivan just wanted to stretch her legs and run her own race.  By the 10K mark (34:21) Sullivan only had teammate Jessica McClain for company, and by 15K she was 21 seconds ahead of McClain and 25 seconds ahead of the main pack.  Her lead over the main group would peak at 63 seconds at the 20K point. "The whole time when I was in the front I was just reminding myself that they are going to come back," Sullivan said.  "You have to run your own race and you can't panic." McClain was rolled up by Jepchirchir, Assefa, Sutume Asefa Kebede of Ethiopia, Stella Chesang of Uganda, Magdalyne Masai of Kenya in the 26th kilometer.  That group caught Sullivan, who had been on pace for a 2:25:00 finish, at the 28K point. "When they went by I kept it together," said Sullivan, who maintained her pace. It was at this point that the second race started.  Assefa and Jepchirchir quickly pulled away from the others and proceeded to run from 30K to the stadium side by side.  They took drinks and soaked themselves with cold towels and sponges as they went, trying to stay cool.  Like two gunfighters facing each other in an old western, the tension built and built until that final circuit of the track. But the biggest surprise of the race would come later when Julia Paternain --a novice marathoner representing Uruguay who lives and trains in Flagstaff, Ariz.-- tiptoed through the field from 15th position at 25K, to tenth place at 30K, to sixth place at 35K.  Paternain, who was born in Mexico but grew up in Great Britain before having a collegiate running career at Penn State and the University of Arkansas, moved into third position in the 39th kilometer.  She had no idea where she was in the running order. "I had no clue," Paternain told reporters.  "Around halfway there was a pack of maybe ten or 15 women ahead of me, and slowly that pack started to break up.  I was just trying to make sure that my miles were consistent.  I knew if I stayed consistent that everyone around me could do what they wanted." Paternain, who was running just her second marathon, entered the stadium a clear third and won the bronze medal in 2:27:23, the first-ever medal for a Uruguayan athlete at the World Athletics Championships.  She did not realize that she made the podium, and wasn't even sure if she needed to do an additional lap inside of the stadium. "I could not believe it when I crossed that finish line," she said.  "I had no idea I was in third.  I also wasn't sure that was the finish line; I wanted to make sure.  I was in so much shock.  I truly cannot believe it." Sullivan finished fourth in 2:28:17, followed by Finland's Alisa Vaino in fifth (2:28:32).  McClain, who had run with Sullivan in the early kilometers, finished eighth in 2:29:20.  Masai, who was contending for a medal late in the race, was forced to drop out. A total of 63 women finished the race out of 73 starters, about the same as the 65 who finished in Budapest two years ago.  The men's marathon will be contested here tomorrow morning on the same course. PHOTO: Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya winning the marathon at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)

(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. TOKYO (12-Sep) -- Jessica McClain ran her first marathon in 2022 with minimal preparation and shoes she bought at Dick's Sporting Goods the night before.  McClain, 33, who will represent the United States here on Sunday in the marathon at the 20th World Athletics Championships, built a playlist on her iPhone to last two hours and 40 minutes and listened to it the entire race.  She went on to win that race, the Mesa Marathon, in Arizona in 2:33:34. "I did everything wrong," she told Race Results Weekly in an interview here today.  "I went to Dick's Sporting Goods and bought a pair of shoes the night before because the Brooks shoes I ordered didn't get there in time because of the post-COVID supply chain stuff.  I was like at Dick's at 8:00 p.m.  Like, I need shoes to race in.  I had no idea what I was doing." But McClain, who competed for Stanford University during her NCAA career, found that road running in general, and marathon running in particular, made her happy.  That was something that had been missing from her solid, yet often injury-plagued, track career.  McClain fell in love with the open and inclusive format of road racing and all of its uncertainties and quirks. "There's just so much that can go wrong in the roads which is why I love it," McClain said.  "You're thinking about things constantly and making decisions in the moment: tangents, and potholes, and there's wind.  There are just so many fun curve balls on the road, and that's why I love it." Putting the fun back in running is one of the main reasons that McClain made it here to Tokyo where she will be competing in her first major championships.  She tried to make it as a pro track runner with the Brooks Beasts in Seattle, but left the Beasts at the end of 2018 to train on her own.  She moved to Phoenix and put up solid results at several road races, including a second place at the Abbott Dash 5-K in New York City which hosted the USATF 5-kilometer road running championships.  That day she finished second to Olympic and world championships medalist Shannon Rowbury by one second. "That's a race where I should have looked at that as, wow, a big springboard or launch pad," McClain recounted.  "That should have been, like, my second rebirth of doing this again."  She added: "I think that race... showed me how much I loved the roads." The Mesa race was McClain's re-entry to competitive running after the pandemic shutdown and an extended training break after marrying her husband Connor McClain.  She felt a new spark to compete and trained herself for Grandma's Marathon in Duluth in 2023 where she finished fourth in 2:29:25.  That performance qualified her for the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials Women's Marathon in Orlando, Florida, a race where she produced a world-class performance despite her unconventional build-up. "Just me and my friends, who were also marathoners, just kind of making up training as we went," McClain said with a hearty laugh.  "It was a hot day, and that was something that definitely played in my favor.  So that made me pretty confident going in." Running in the early morning in Phoenix turned McClain into an unusually good heat runner.  She played her cards almost perfectly in Orlando.  She was only in 13th place at halfway (1:12:38), but moved up to fourth by the finish.  She missed an Olympic team berth by one place and just 15 seconds; that's just 0.58 seconds per mile. "I know how to run in the heat so I knew to be patient," McClain told Race Results Weekly that day.  "Pretty much every marathon I've run that's what I can base my experience on.  A lot of people have come back to me each time.  I know I'm a good second half of the race runner so I just tried to stay within myself." But McClain got even closer to the Olympics than those 15 seconds.  Trials champion Fiona O'Keeffe was nursing a sore hip in the weeks leading up to the Olympic Games, and McClain was brought to Paris as the team alternate just in case O'Keeffe could not race.  O'Keeffe did ultimately start, but dropped out in the first 5-K segment of the race.  McClain's turn on a big stage would have to wait for at least another year; her spirit was not broken. "I think Paris was a big learning opportunity," said McClain, who still works a job and only runs once a day.  "I think I just learned to just be grateful that, you know, the opportunity presented itself in whatever way it looked like.  It also showed me, for me to look back on my career, kind of like, think back on what made it successful." McClain made the USA team for these championships after finishing eighth at the TCS New York City Marathon last fall (2:27:19), then nailing the best run of her life at the Boston Marathon last April where she clocked a personal best 2:22:43.  She finished seventh and was the top American.  That gave her enough World Athletics ranking points to gain selection for the USA team along with Erika Kemp and Susanna Sullivan, who both qualified by time.  The Boston race was McClain's first under the coaching of David Roche, an ultra-marathoner who set the course record for the Leadville 100 Mile last month. "Making a team now in my eyes as a 33 year-old at the older end of the spectrum, I am so grateful and excited to be here," McClain said.  "I ended up getting here because I let go a little bit.  I think I was just holding it so tight all of these years, defining my entire career by making a team.  And when I kind of relinquished that a little bit and embraced the World (Marathon) Majors scene and just realized there are so many amazing opportunities, it just kind of alleviated the pressure I put on myself.  Now that I'm here, you've just kind of have to go for broke." Indeed, McClain sees the hot and humid conditions as giving her a relative advantage (Phoenix experienced 113 consecutive days of 100-degree Fahrenheit/38-degree Celsius temperatures this year).  She also did four training sessions in a humidity chamber at Arizona State University which she said would help her even more here in hot and humid Tokyo (it may also rain).  She is hoping for a high finish. "I'm assuming that it won't go out too, too crazy," she said.  "But, I'm kind of up for whatever.  If it goes, it goes.  She continued: "I feel pretty good.  I want to keep the top ten in focus for the first half, and I'm here to get top-five, top-three.  If I blow up in pursuit of that, that's what it is. I'm here to show up and show out, so I'm just really excited to see how it goes." PHOTO: Jessica McClain finishing the 2025 Boston Marathon (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)