Des Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon champ, ran to a record 50K on a tree-lined course in Oregon Tuesday morning.
Paced by Charlie Lawrence, Linden cruised through the course on a beautiful day, running strong at a sub 6 minute pace throughout the day. She hit the half-marathon mark at 1:15:47 and the the full marathon at 2:31:13 which is a full eight minutes faster than when she won a rain-soaked Boston just three years ago. She crossed the 50K finish line in 2:59:54*
Brooks Running, her sponsor posted videos and updates through out the run on the running gear company’s twitter feed while Sarah Longe Butler of Runner’s World live tweeted the event and was likely the first to report Linden’s mastery of the distance.
People followed Linden’s progress on twitter through the hashtag #Des50k throughout the day.
The previous world record was held by Britain’s Aly Dixon who ran a 3:07:20 in September of 2019.
The British runner was all class and showed why she’s a great champion, too.
Dixon, apparently also following Longe Butler and tweeted out “Well done @des_linden excellent run.” She also noted, “be right back, just changing my bio…” to reflect Linden’s record.
Linden is a true runners’ runner. I can’t think of anyone who is a runner, pro or hoofer like me who, who has not been impressed by her or found inspiration in her continued pursuit of excellence.
A coffee aficionado and whiskey connoisseur, lift one or the other to our new 50k champ.
For more on Des Linden check out her website.
*Thanks to a reader, we caught a typo and corrected the finish time from 2:39:54 to 2:59:54. Regret the error.
Unless it is a typo, you are saying she did the final 8km in 7minutes?
LikeLike
It’s a typo makagutu. Thanks for noticing and it’s been corrected with a notation showing the edit. Thanks for reading I appreciate that and regret the error.
LikeLike
No problem Robert. That’s a great pace for that distance. Mortals like me would take forever to cover that distance, if we survived to the end.
LikeLike
I agree. She was really impressive.
LikeLike