Des Linden says Monday’s Boston Marathon will be her final pro marathon
“I’m ready to leave it all out on the course one last time,” Linden announced as she departed for the start line in Hopkinton.
Boston Marathon fan favorite and 2018 champion Des Linden announced her retirement from professional marathoning, saying Monday’s race from Hopkinton to Boylston will be her last as a pro.
Linden, 41, broke the news in a full-page Boston Globe ad and on social media Monday morning as she departed for the start line, styling the news as a love letter to Boston.
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“People say you should go out on top, and that’s what I’m doing — because getting to race my final professional marathon in Boston is indeed going out on top,” Linden wrote. “I’m ready to leave it all out on the course one last time. See you on Boylston.”
Monday’s race will be Linden’s 12th time running the Marathon. Her 2018 win in soggy and frigid conditions made the two-time Olympian a Boston legend.
“I made my debut at 26.2 on your roads in 2007 and fell in love — with the distance and with the Boston Marathon,” Linden recalled. “Four years later, we were in it together as you lifted me up through the Newton Hills, carried me as I turned Right on Hereford and Left on Boylston, and brought me within two heartbreaking seconds of victory.”
Still, she continued, “you never gave up on me, inviting me to keep showing up. Hell, you embraced the fight, because Boston knows grit. The victory in 2018 wasn’t just mine, it was ours.”
Linden’s longtime sponsor, Brooks Running, said in an email she’s not retiring from professional running altogether and will instead be focusing on “new goals, including ultra-marathons and trail races, and continued leadership in the sport.” She’ll pace Brooks athlete Joe McConaughy at the Western States 100-Mile in June, continue to inform elite racing product development as Brooks’s chief running advisor, and maintain a presence at World Major Marathons outside the elite field, the company said.
But for now, Linden said via Instagram she’s “ready for one last #BostonMarathon battle,” adding, “Thanks for all the years and all the cheers.”
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