Fast Women: A first for Jess McClain in a breakout year
Tara Dower becomes the fastest person to cover the Appalachian Trail.
Issue 316, sponsored by Runbuk
Jess McClain wins her first national title
A pack of five runners pulled away early in the USATF 10K Championships, hosted by the Cow Harbor 10K in Northport, New York. Amanda Vestri, Erika Kemp, Natosha Rogers, Emma Grace Hurley, and Jess McClain each took turns leading. In the third mile, Kemp began to drop back, and shortly after three miles, Vestri lost contact as well.
During the fourth mile, McClain began to push the pace, and she opened up a sizable gap over Hurley and Rogers. She powered through the final miles unchallenged and earned her first national title, running 31:40. McClain took 13 seconds off of Stephanie Bruce’s course record from 2022, and she earned $8,000 for the win plus a $2,500 record bonus.
Rogers took second (32:00), Hurley, who now has a solo lead in the USATF Running Circuit standings, was third (32:05), and Kemp finished fourth (32:10). Keira D’Amato, who is three weeks out from the Chicago Marathon, started the race more conservatively but moved up to take fifth (32:13). Vestri finished sixth (32:21) and Annie Rodenfels and Katie Izzo, who also started in the second pack, finished seventh (32:25) and eighth (32:34), respectively.
This year’s race attracted a much deeper than usual field, and it was an interesting time of year for this combination of athletes to line up together. Some are in the middle of their seasons, others are in the midst of marathon training, and others are just getting back into things. “The fitness? Who knows, it’s the beginning of my season,” Rodenfels wrote on Instagram the day before the race.
It was great to see McClain add her first national title to her resume, three weeks after she finished second to D’Amato at the USATF 20K Championships. She’s in the midst of training for the New York City Marathon, which will close out an incredible breakthrough year that has included two fourth-place finishes at the U.S. Olympic Trials, in the marathon and the 10,000m.
“There’s no one way to do all of this, which is so beautifully demonstrated every time fields are assembled and we line up together,” McClain wrote on Instagram after the race. “The right way is your way… Sometimes that takes a long time to figure out what that looks like, but hopefully that way is ultimately a lot of fun for you.”
And after a tough year that included two months of injury, Rogers was pleased to feel more like herself again. And she gave it her all. “I puked all over the finish line, so other than that, I feel really happy with my performance today,” she said afterward. (Results)
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Tara Dower becomes the fastest person to traverse the Appalachian Trail
Late Saturday night, Altra-sponsored ultrarunner Tara Dower set an overall supported fastest known time for the Appalachian Trail, covering the 2,197.4 miles in 40 days, 18 hours, and 5 minutes. She became the first person to cover the entire trail on foot in less than 41 days, bettering Karel Sabbe’s mark of 41 days, 7 hours, and 39 minutes, from 2018, by 13 hours and 34 minutes.
While Sabbe chose to run northbound to Maine’s Mount Katahdin, Dower opted for the southbound route, finishing at Springer Mountain in Georgia. Most of the time she was on the trail, Dower was behind Sabbe’s record pace, thanks in part to a rainy stretch in New England. But over the final month or so, she was gaining ground, and she caught and passed Sabbe’s record pace in the final days.
Dower, 31, became the first woman to hold the overall fastest known time on the trail since 2015, when Scott Jurek surpassed Jennifer Pharr Davis’ record. During the pandemic, Dower spent time working for Pharr Davis, as a backpacking guide and hostel caretaker in North Carolina, and that helped inspire her speed attempt.
In conjunction with her run, Dower, whose trail name is Candy Mama, has raised more than $21,000 for Girls on the Run so far. For more on Dower, Grayson Haver Currin wrote a great article for Outside. She also has a website and a popular YouTube channel.
Other News and Links
Just over a week ago, Brittany Brown, Kenny Bednarek, and Valarie Allman won titles at the Diamond League Final, and Roberta Groner won the USATF Masters 12K Championships, setting an American age-group record along the way. But it was Nora Cary, 69, who was named USATF Athlete of the Week. Cary ran 51:41 at the USATF Masters 12K Championships (6:55.9/mile) which earned an age-graded score of 100.7 percent, meaning she ran faster than the scoring tables thought a 69-year-old woman could run.
This Runner’s World article from Sarah Lorge Butler has been updated to include confirmation from Sinclaire Johnson that she has left the Union Athletics Club and she will not be moving to Colorado. She will continue to be based in Portland and will do stints at altitude. In an Instagram post last week, Johnson said that she was dealing with a soleus strain most of the summer and she’s already implementing changes to make her health a priority.
It was interesting to read about some of the rough points in Keely Hodgkinson’s year in this article from Athletics Weekly. Everyone has their struggles, even Olympic champions.
Shannon Rowbury did an interview with NBC Bay Area after learning she’s in line to potentially get an Olympic bronze medal in the 1500m, 12 years after the fact.
Former Iowa State star Cailie (Logue) Hughes has signed with Puma.
It looks like the McKirdy Micro Marathon is going to be back on March 30, 2025, and given what a success it was this year, I expect we’ll see some excellent runners line up. James McKirdy also teased a race for the slightly less speedy, which looks like it might target getting as many runners under 3:00 as possible, as well as an accompanying 10K. Fingers crossed that the weather cooperates with all of it.
It’s heartbreaking to read that Wesleyan College cross country runner Nefertari Holston, 23, died on Saturday after going into cardiac arrest during a cross country race at Middle Georgia State.
The Diamond League announced last week that it will increase its prize money to its highest-ever level in 2025. The total prize money per event will be between $30,000 and $50,000 during the season and between $60,000 and $100,000 at the final. Maybe this was always in the works, but the move comes as a new player, Grand Slam Track, enters the scene. And when it comes to prize money, as they pointed out last week, following the DL announcement, GST is in a league of its own.
Athlos, part track meet, part Megan Thee Stallion concert, will take place at New York City’s Icahn Stadium this Thursday. Given all of the resources Alexis Ohanian has put into getting this event off the ground, and the fact that some major stars have extended their seasons to take part, I’m discouraged to see that there are still a fair number of tickets available in the 5,000-seat stadium. Tickets are more expensive than they were for the NYC Grand Prix, held at Icahn in June, but Athlos aims to be a one-of-a-kind event.
Correction: Over the weekend, I realized that I’ve been spelling Dorcus Ewoi’s first name wrong for months. My apologies for repeatedly getting that wrong. I think that probably came about because it’s spelled Dorcas in her World Athletics bio.
Additional Results
Kenyans swept the top six spots at the Brazov Running Festival 10K, led by Loice Chemnung (30:13) and Janeth Chepngetich (30:19). (Results)
Izzi Batt-Doyle won the Run Prix 10K in an Australian record of 31:12, and Genevieve Gregson, who’s already back to racing after running the Olympic marathon, took second in 31:53. (Results)
Scotland’s Eilish McColgan won the London 10K in 31:36, and Katie Snowden won the Westminster (Road) Mile in 4:23. Clare Elms ran 5:21, which is an unofficial world best for the 60–64 age group. And Kirstie Booth set a British record for the 45–49 age group, running 4:56.
Dot McMahan won the Golden Grizzlies 5K in 16:36 and finished third overall. The 47-year-old said in an Instagram story that it was her fastest time in more than 10 years. (Results)
Eight days after going 1–2 at the Headlands 27K, Kenya’s Joyce Muthoni Njeru (2:11:56) and Romania’s Monica Madalina Florea (2:14:51) did the same at the Mammoth Trail Fest 26K. Behind them, six Americans cracked the top 10: Anna Gibson (third, 2:20:03), Rachel Drake (fourth, 2:20:40), Tabor Hemming (fifth, 2:21:47), Lauren Gregory (sixth, 2:21:57), Allie Ostrander (eighth, 2:23:15), and EmKay Sullivan (ninth, 2:23:39). Njeru leads the Golden Trail World Series overall going into the final, which will take place October 17–20 in Switzerland. (Results | Race coverage)
Allie McLaughlin won the Pikes Peak Ascent in 2:45:36 and Sarah Guhl won the Pikes Peak “Marathon,” which was shortened to about 14.3 miles due to the conditions, in 2:10:57.
Clemson’s Judy Kosgei (16:11.1), Silvia Jelego (16:17.6), and Gladys Chepngetich (16:24.2) swept the top three spots at the Adidas XC Challenge in Cary, North Carolina, but NC State won the team title by going 4–5–6–8–11. (Results)
Minnesota’s Ali Weimer and her teammates came from behind at halfway to win the team and individual titles at the Roy Griak Invitational, on their home course. Weimer (21:08.5) and her teammate Emma Atkinson (21:13.7) went 1–2. And I appreciated Weimer’s hot mic reaction to learning that her team had taken the win. (Results)
The sweepstakes race at the Woodbridge Cross Country Classic was stacked, and California senior Rylee Blade came out on top, covering the three-mile course in a “national record” of 15:20.3. (I think it’s silly to have national records in cross country, where all courses are different and many aren’t necessarily accurately measured. But it was incredibly quick.) California junior Chiara Dailey finished second, not far back, in 15:28.2. Timpview (Utah) teammates Lily Alder (15:28.9) and Jane Hedengren (15:36.7) were third and fourth, and California senior Sadie Engelhardt was fifth. (Results)
At London’s Self-Transcendence 24-Hour Track Race, Sarah Funderburk covered 131.055 miles and earned the outright win. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
Karissa Schweizer was on the Ali on the Run Show, and it was interesting to hear her share more details about her recovery from the femoral stress reaction she suffered in late April. She said she thought she recovered faster because she took some time completely off, rather than going straight into hammering cross training, which she thinks she would have done in the past. And I enjoyed the end of this quote. “I love racing the 1500m when you just gun it from the start and it kind of turns into this like death march at the end, because it’s low-key my strength,” she said of the Fifth Avenue Mile. “I can die really well.”
On I’ll Have Another, Gabbi Jennings discussed lowering her steeplechase PR from 9:25 to 9:07 this year and some of the setbacks she encountered along the way. She revealed that since last year, she’s been struggling off and on with some serious stabbing pain underneath her rib cage. It was particularly bad leading up to the Prefontaine Classic, but she consulted with a PT who determined it’s a problem with her diaphragm and now she has a way of manually releasing it. She also talked about traveling all the way to the Paris Diamond League meet only to discover that she had Covid. And it was interesting to hear her take on the speedsuits the Adidas athletes wore this season.
It’s been great to see Savannah Berry get some attention after her third-place finish at the USATF 20K Championships. She was on C Tolle Run last week, where she shared more about her background and her training setup. She lives in Orem, Utah, is coached by Isaac Wood and sponsored by Asics, and she trains with other pro runners in the area when she can make it work. She’s hoping to finish among the top five American women at the New York City Marathon.
I enjoyed learning more about 1984 Olympian Ruth Wysocki in a two-part interview on the Running in the 70s podcast. Wysocki famously upset Mary Decker Slaney to win the 1500m at the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials.
Georgia Bell was on The Running Effect Podcast, and it was interesting to hear some of the specifics of her training. She said she thinks she can handle going out quickly in races because of the intensity of some of the workouts they do.
On Running in Circles, reigning NXN champion Addy Ritzenhein said she has been talking to NC State, NAU, CU, and Florida, and she’s currently most interested in the first two.
Last week, I linked to Rainn Wilson on Alexi Pappas’ podcast, and this past week, I enjoyed listening to Pappas on Wilson’s podcast, Soul Boom.
Additional Episodes: Whittni Morgan talked a lot about food and a little about her Olympic experience on the Lactic Acid Podcast | Father and daughter Mark and Katrina Coogan made a joint appearance on I’ll Have Another | Dr. Lennie Waite, a British Olympian who ran for Rice University, shared a lot of good thoughts on the importance of fueling healthy running on Voice in Sport | And related, Ava Lloyd, who was fifth in the 1500m at the World U20 Championships, was on Fitter, Faster & Happier, where she talked about struggling with running during puberty, but continuing to fuel her body well and coming out better on the other side.
Upcoming
Athlos, taking place in New York City on Thursday night, is the last big event of the 2024 track season. The meet begins at 7:00 p.m. ET. I haven’t seen a schedule of events yet, but they’ve promised streaming via YouTube, X, ESPN, and DAZN.
And as track season ends, marathon season heats up. The Berlin Marathon takes place on Sunday and Ethiopia’s Tigist Ketema, who ran 2:16:07 in her marathon debut in January, goes in as the favorite. Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru would have been her most likely challenger, but she has withdrawn from the race. Now the top seven seeds are all from Ethiopia. (You can find the elite entrants here.) I was interested to see Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery share that she’s a last-minute entrant as well, after dropping out of the Olympic marathon.
Assuming my math is correct, the runners will start at 3:15 a.m. ET, and the race will be on FloTrack in the U.S. (Here’s a list of international broadcasters. If you’re opposed to FloTrack, a VPN might be a better bet.)
And I’m also looking forward to the Nuttycombe Invitational, the first big meet of the NCAA cross country season, on Friday. That will be streamed live on RunnerSpace (subscription required) and you can see a list of the participating teams and start times here. The women’s “A” race goes at 1:20 p.m. ET.
Thanks again to Runbuk for supporting Fast Women, and if you’re looking for an incredible running adventure, check them out.
Thanks, also, to all of you who help keep Fast Women going with your support via Patreon and Venmo. I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison
Also appreciate the bit of background on Tara Dower. All the other news briefs spent more time explaining what the Appalachian Trail was than anything about her beyond her name.
Thanks for the podcast tip. I’ve felt over the top annoying complaining about the awful adidas speedsuits all season and am excited to hear someone else talk about them. Funny that Nike got all the bad press then adidas just slipped one in on ‘em.