On the morning of Monday, April 21, 2025, as some 30,000 runners were lacing up to run the 2025 Boston Marathon, news broke from former champion and current women’s 50-kilometer world record holder, Des Linden, that it would be her last competitive road marathon. As part of that announcement, she indicated that she plans to pursue a career in trail running and ultrarunning. Linden chose to go out on top, running 2:26 on the day, placing 17th woman overall, and winning the women’s 40-to-44 age group.
She told iRunFar, “My goal was to compete all day long and make sure I didn’t look back at a single moment and question if I gave it my all. I thought on an A/A+ day I could crack 2:26. I didn’t get it done, but got pretty close, so I was happy with it. I was also 17th and never really in contention, which helped validate my feelings that it’s time to move on and try new things.”
She elaborated, “I’m still relatively quick, but the road scene has exploded in the past few years. Everyone is running so fast, and I just don’t have the same pace as the front contenders.”
Linden has a long history with the Boston Marathon, which she has now run 12 times, beginning with her debut at the distance in 2007. In 2011, she placed second to Caroline Kilel of Kenya by a margin of just two seconds. She won the race in 2018, under awful weather conditions with rain, cold, and wind, showing her grit.
Des Linden at the 2025 Boston Marathon, with pace data from Coros. Photo: Coros
In an announcement in the “Boston Globe” newspaper on the morning of the 2025 Boston Marathon, Linden paid tribute to the iconic race, which has played a formative role in her journey as a runner: “Dear Boston: I made my debut at 26.2 on your roads in 2007 and fell in love — with the distance and with the Boston Marathon … 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 … But 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.”
The 2025 Boston Marathon was Linden’s 29th marathon, and her fastest run in Boston since 2017. So far from slowing down, she could be making the move into trail running at still close to her peak.
Linden, who is hoping to pace Brooks teammate Joe McConaughy at the 2025 Western States 100, has been planning the transition into trail running and ultrarunning for some time now. Truth be told, she’s already experimented outside of road marathoning. The two-time Olympian set the women’s 50k world record on April 13, 2021, in Eugene, Oregon, at 2:59:54, making her the first woman to break the three-hour barrier. Four years on, the record is unbroken.
Then, in 2022, she traveled to Chamonix, France, for the UTMB Mont Blanc festival, to get a feel for the world of trail running. She told the “Singletrack” podcast, “It was amazing. You get to a place like that and you’re just so inspired by it.”
Now three more years later, it appears the right time has come for her to make that change. She explained to iRunFar, “I’m very trail curious! Leaving the roads really opens the door to test out new surfaces and distances and I’m pretty excited about that. I have no clue if I have the tools to make me successful on the trails, or at any distance over 50k, but the idea of being curious and a bit scared about testing it out is fun. Marathons really became a routine, and I loved it, but I’m ready for a fresh challenge. Even if I turn out to be no good at it, trying something new and getting to run in beautiful places still sounds pretty great.”
As the next step in her exploration of the trail sphere, Linden will attend the Western States 100 Training Camp on the U.S. Memorial Day weekend, to get a feel for the course, and to be sure she is confident and prepared to pace McConaughy. She hasn’t ruled out one day running the iconic 100 miler herself. She said, “As long as it looks like I can manage my section of the pacing duties I’ll head out and help with pacing. Getting a feel for the event and the experience will tell me a lot about if I want to focus my attention there or not.”
With regard to more immediate race plans for 2025, she said: “Nothing planned yet. I do have an entry to Tunnel Hill 50 Mile, but I haven’t decided yet if that’s what I want to focus on this fall.”
Among top trail runners who’ve previously switched over from the roads to trails is U.S. Olympian Magda Boulet, winner of the 2015 Western States 100, 2018 Marathon des Sables, and the 2019 Leadville 100 Mile. Boulet and Linden are friends, and have done plenty of trail running together over the last few years. Boulet was excited for Linden’s venture and told iRunFar: “Desi has a bright and fun future ahead of her on the trail scene. She is gritty, tough as nails, and she is a learner. I can see her welcoming new training elements with a smile and also embracing the unpredictability of ultrarunning. The combination of her current speed and ability to endure will set her apart from many.”
When asked what advice she would offer Linden, Boulet said: “Desi has a pretty darn good recipe of what it takes to be successful. One piece of advice I have for her is to keep showing up to run adventures with me, and also make the Western States 100 [where Boulet also serves as a member of the nonprofit organization’s board] her 100-mile debut.”
We will be watching this space for Des Linden to break into the trail and ultra scene even more, and we look forward to that big impact.
Many thanks to Coros, for providing pace data on Linden’s 2025 Boston Marathon, and for helping to facilitate this interview.
