Top American marathoners will race from Folsom to Sacramento for a combined $116,500 prize purse
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The 43rd California International Marathon (CIM) will host the 2026 USA Track & Field (USATF) Road Marathon Championships on Sunday, December 6. The Marathon Championships are the final event on the annual USATF Road Racing Circuit and will bring together more than 200 of the top U.S. marathoners from across the country.
“CIM has become the place where American marathoning careers are made,” said Scott Abbott, Sacramento Running Association Executive Director. “For emerging elites, this course is a proving ground, the place to run the breakthrough performance that puts them on the national map. For established stars, a national title in Sacramento is a defining line on a career resume.”
“Hosting the USATF Marathon Championships is a point of pride for our region,” Abbott added. “Year after year, the streets from Folsom to the Capitol have become a familiar and fitting stage for the best marathoners in the country, and our community turns out to cheer them home.”
Veteran marathoner Sara Hall of Flagstaff, Ariz., returns to CIM and the USATF Marathon Championships after finishing second last year in 2:24:36. Hall has established herself as one of the country’s top championship performers. She won the 2017 CIM and USATF Marathon Championships, along with 11 other national titles throughout her professional career. Hall owns the fastest personal best in the women’s field at 2:20:32, the fifth-fastest marathon ever run by an American woman.
“I can’t wait to be back in Northern California, where I grew up, for CIM,” said Hall. “Racing there last year felt like coming home, and the support out on the course really blew me away. It’s the perfect stage to test myself against an awesome US championship field.”
Hall’s Northern California roots stretch back to her career as a scholastic star at Santa Rosa’s Montgomery High School and an All-American athlete at Stanford University. Hall will face a strong contingent of veteran marathoners, including Gabi Rooker of Minneapolis, Minn., and Kellyn Taylor of Flagstaff, Ariz. Both hold personal bests of 2:24:29 for the 26.2-mile distance. Marathon debutant Allie Ostrander of Boulder, Colo., is also expected to vie for the title. Ostrander is coming off an impressive string of fall road racing, headlined by her 1:08:55 half-marathon performance at the Valencia Half Marathon in October. Megan Sailor of Dorchester, Mass., will toe the line for just her second marathon after an impressive debut at the 2025 CIM and USATF Marathon Championships, where she finished third in 2:25:17.
The men’s field will be led by 2023 CIM Champion CJ Albertson of Fresno, Calif. Albertson is having an impressive year of marathoning, featuring a personal-best 2:07:19 at the Chicago Marathon in October. Just three weeks later, he set a course record of 2:08:28 at the Two Cities Marathon in Fresno.
“I’m excited to return to the rolling hills of CIM. It is always a fun race and the best way to close out the year,” said Albertson.
Albertson is expected to face a strong challenge from 2024 Paris and 2016 Rio Olympian Leonard Korir of Colorado Springs, Colo., and 2022 CIM runner-up Jacob Thomson of Flagstaff, Ariz. Korir holds a personal best of 2:07:56, set in his marathon debut in 2019. Thomson ran a personal best of 2:09:51 at the Boston Marathon earlier this year and will be looking to contend for the national title. As in the women’s race, the veteran men will face a strong contingent of newcomers to the distance.
The 2026 CIM field features several marathon debutants to watch, including Isai Rodriguez of Chapel Hill, N.C., who ran a half-marathon personal best of 59:57 earlier this year. Rodriguez hails from the same training group as 2025 CIM Champion Molly Born, who captured the USATF Marathon Championships title last year in her marathon debut. Acer Iverson is another newcomer to watch after winning the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon this summer in 1:01:57.
The men’s and women’s championship fields will compete for a combined $116,500 prize purse, with an additional $5,000 bonus for setting a new course record. U.S. athletes who run under the 2028 USATF Marathon Olympic Trials qualifying standards of 2:16:00 for men and 2:37:00 for women will also be eligible for a $500 bonus. The current CIM course records are 2:07:35 for men, set in 2024 by Tsegay Weldlibanos, and 2:24:09 for women, set in 2025 by Molly Born.
The Sacramento Running Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding ways to encourage people of all ages and abilities to run. The SRA is committed to developing new, quality running events that appeal to a broad variety of runners.
2026 USATF Marathon Championship Fields: