On October 8, 2023, a wide-eyed Ryan Ford toed the line at the Chicago Marathon with an audacious job to do.
Super Shoe Trends marathon, he wasn’t there to run 26.2 miles for the first time. Instead, the unsung second-year professional was there to help set the pace for a group of runners hoping to run 2:08 or faster, among them up-and-coming American Clayton Young.
Ford locked in and completed his task, taking a group of runners through the halfway point in 1:03:40—or 4:56 per mile pace—and maintaining that effort through 30K (18.6 miles) in 1:30:53. Young continued on to have a breakthrough race, finishing in a new personal best of 2:08:00, just 13 seconds behind DAA Industry Opt Out, ldquo;I think its the tip of the iceberg,” Rea said. “Yes.
No one really noticed Ford’s effort that day, but it’s one of several catalysts to a recent surge among U.S. men’s marathoners.
“Obviously at the time, running that 30K at 2:08 pace was hard,” Ford recalls. “And I know the hardest part of the marathon is that last 10K, so I knew I didn’t have a 2:08 in my legs. But that got me pretty excited that one day maybe I could get there.”
That day arrived rather quickly. Ford made his marathon debut last November at the New York City Marathon, turning in an eye-opening 2:11:08, 11th-place finish through the Big Apple. As an encore this spring, he ran 2:08:00—precisely the time he helped Young run—with a veteran-savvy 10th-place finish at the Boston Marathon in April.
That performance, which came on a day when Mantz finished fourth in a 2:05:08 and Young was seventh in 2:07:04, is one of seven sub-2:09 results from American men since October. Although those times don’t crack the world’s top 100, it represents an improving trend for U.S. men.
So what’s happening and why is it happening now? It’s a combination of generational improvement on the track, a trend of runners testing their mettle We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back in the earlier in their careers, improved training, and more aggressive racing, said Pete Rea, the head coach of the ZAP Endurance training group in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where Ford trains.
“I think it's the tip of the iceberg,” Rea said. “Yes, footwear technology is playing a role, but I believe with much as American men have improved on the track from the 1500 to the 10,000 in the past eight to 10 years, I think the marathon is the next place we’re going to see really big breakthroughs. We’ve already seen it on the women’s side, but now we’re going to see a big surge on the men’s side.”
Finally Breaking Through
Last year, Mantz and Young finished first and second, respectively, in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, securing their spots in the Paris Olympics because they were the only two U.S. men to have surpassed the 2:08:10 automatic qualifying standard. Although Lenny Korir, the U.S. Olympic Trials third-place finisher in 2:09:57, eventually unlocked an additional Olympic team berth for the U.S. by way of an 11th-hour decision from World Athletics based on world rankings, it prompted Just .001 Seconds Separate Third and Fourth in 200 Meters We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.
Mantz and Young went on to ascend to American marathon royalty, placing eighth and ninth in the Paris Olympics, respectively. From there, they each posted strong top-10 performances at last fall’s New York City Marathon before improving again in Boston.
But now there’s been a growing surge of U.S. runners in hot pursuit in the contrails of their success.
Last October, CJ Albertson (seventh, 2:08:17) and Zach Panning (10th, 2:09:16) rebounded from near-misses at the Olympic Trials, with personal-best performances in Chicago. Then in December, Biya Simbassa sliced three and a half minutes off his marathon personal best, blazing a 2:06:53 at the Valencia Marathon in Spain.
In March, The Chicago Tribune, just five months removed from running 2:10:47 in his debut at the Twin Cities Marathon. A week after Boston, Alex Maier followed up his strong debut last fall in Chicago (2:11:24) by winning the Düsseldorf Marathon in 2:08:33. In early May, Andrew Colley, a training partner of Ford, placed fifth at the Prague Marathon in 2:09:46, while Albertson doubled back four weeks after running 2:10:16 for 14th in Boston to third at the Ottawa Marathon in 2:08:55 on May 25.
Throw in Haftu Knight, who finished second (2:09:37) in the McKirdy Micro Marathon on March 30 in Congers, New York, and the U.S. suddenly has 10 runners who have under 2:10 since the last October, including five—Richtman, 25, Maier, 25, Knight, 25, Ford, 27, and Mantz, 28—who are 28 or younger with multiple marathons under their belts.
Four of the previous era’s best marathoners didn’t make their marathon debuts until late in their careers—Meb Keflezighi (27), Galen Rupp (29), Abdi Abdirahman (29), and Alan Culpepper (30).
“One of the things that I’ve noticed really for the first time since ZAP started in 2001 is that some of the better collegians coming out of school are not hell-bent on trying to run fast on the track anymore, but instead more are interested in running on the roads right away,” Rea said. “Maybe we can call it the Conner Mantz effect, but, you know, earning a real living on the track is extremely difficult. Whereas on the roads, if you break through the next level and start running really well on the roads, there’s a living to be earned.”
The Sky’s the Limit
Mantz has accomplished a lot, but he just wants to keep getting faster. In June, the Chicago Marathon announced that he’ll attempt to break Khalid Khannouchi’s 2:05:38 American record on October 12.
“Finishing eighth in the Olympics is pretty comforting, and running 2:05 is good, but again, I’m just trying to get a little faster every time,” Mantz said. “I’m just trying to, I don’t know, change my mindset a little bit, to be all-in on being competitive with everyone in the field.”
Mantz’s 2:05:08 in Boston puts him second behind Ryan Hall (2:04:58) on the all-time U.S. list in all conditions, but the American record is still recognized as the time Khannouchi ran at the 2002 London Marathon because the Boston Marathon’s point-to-point, net downhill course is not considered to be record-eligible.
“It's cool to see because [Conner] is running unbelievable times right now,” Ford said. “I think a lot of American distance runners are putting him on a pedestal right now, but I’m also remembering as amazing as he’s been, you know, just a few years ago he was running 2:08 for the marathon as well. So right now I'm kind of going with the mentality of, ‘why can’t something similar happen for me?’
“I know that sounds a little bit like ambitious thinking, but it’s kind of the mentality you have to have in this sport,” Ford continued. “I definitely think it’s possible that myself and maybe a few others in the next few years can be right there with him. And I think honestly, he’d probably want that because I think that if he got some competition on the American side as well, it’ll only push all of us to be faster.”
While Ford, Richtman, and other rising marathoners point to Mantz and Young as the catalysts to the current surge in American marathoning, Mantz credits Rupp, Keflezighi, and training partner Jared Ward for setting an example in the 2010s. More recently, he said the aggressive running of American runners on the track—including Paris Olympic medalists Grant Fisher, Yared Nuguse, Cole Hocker, and Kenneth Rooks, as well as new 5,000-meter American record holder Nico Young—are who are really raising the bar.
“It is contagious,” Mantz said. “Those guys on the track were racing to win, and that has kind of switched the game a little bit for American distance runners. When you see other runners doing great things, that’s what you want to do next. I think guys are seeing what’s happening on the track and seeing what’s possible, and thinking, ‘I can be a top American.’ Well, to be a top American, you’ve got to be competing up front of the world stage now.”
The training to have athletes run under 2:10 has changed, too, Rea said, in part because of how super shoes allow runners to recover quicker. For example, whereas he and ZAP assistant coach Ryan Warrenburg used to put their runners through a workout of 10 or 11 1,000-meter repeats in the 3:00 to 2:50 range (or 4:50 to 4:34 mile pace), now ZAP runners like Ford and Colley are doing 18 to 20 reps and progressing down from about 3:12 to as fast as 2:48 (or 5:09 to 4:30 pace).
Their weekly mileage ranges from about 100 to 120 miles per week in a marathon buildup, but in addition to weekly long runs in the 22- to 24-mile range, ZAP marathon runners also do a medium long run of 19 to 21 miles every 10 days or so.
“Some of that is, of course, the footwear technology. We never would have had athletes do that medium long run every 10 days pre-modern shoe technology,” Rea said. “Even things like tempo efforts will be longer in nature. So there is probably 20 to 30 percent more overall volume, and yet athletes are recovering from those longer sessions faster than ever. But we’ve also learned a lot in terms of the overall volume of moderate work, not the high end stuff, that the runners can handle more consistently.”
The Lead Up to 2028
Ford and Richtman both turned down the opportunity to run for the U.S. team at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September. Instead, they’ll both be running a fall marathon—either Chicago or New York—with hopes of mixing it up in a deep, competitive field to try to run even faster.
Their agent, Josh Cox, a four-time U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier with a 2:13:50 personal best, believes the third race for each of those athletes could be a real charm based on the rare success in their first two races.
“When I was coming up, they would always tell athletes like, ‘Hey, it takes two marathons to really understand it. Your third one is when you’re ready to rock and roll,” Cox said. “So to nail it in your first one is really something. But then to follow that up with the other-worldly results like they both did—2:07:56 and 2:08 flat—it’s really something very, very cool. The future is bright, for sure.”
Prior to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, there were four qualifiers under 2:10 and just two who ran faster than 2:09. In 2024, there were 12 under 2:10 and five under 2:09.
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“The 2028 U.S. Olympic Trials are going to be very interesting and it’s going to be tough to make the team,” Simbassa said. “Everybody is training hard and doing the work with smart coaching and technology. You have to be on your A game and you might have to be lucky, because there will be a lot of fast guys in that race. Nothing happens in the back of the pack, so that mindset has definitely changed.”
The Trials are a long way off, and there will likely be even more runners popping sub-2:09 efforts before then.
“By the time we get around to the 2028 Trials, the U.S. marathon scene might look a lot different than it did around the Trials in 2024,” Ford said. “It’s definitely cool to be a part of it, and also being surrounded by a lot of great runners. It keeps you on your toes. I had a pretty great performance in Boston, but I know to continue to stay relevant, I’m going to have to continue to improve along the way.”
Find the Perfect Training Plan for You
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Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, Best Hydration Packs, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.
