What to Expect From the Elite Women’s Race at the 2026 Chicago Marathon

Twelve women lining up in Grant Park on Sunday have broken 2:20 in the marathon, up from five a year ago, by LetsRun’s count. None of them has come within four minutes of Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 from 2024, which still stands as both the world record and the course record while she serves a doping ban, so the women’s race at the 2026 Chicago Marathon should be a race for the win rather than a record attempt, and with a two-time Chicago champion, the defending champion and a two-time Boston winner all on the start line, it is a hard one to call.

Kosgei and Feysa

Brigid Kosgei has the fastest personal best in the field by 53 seconds, and nobody in it has a better record on this course. She was second here in 2017, won in 2018 and came back in 2019 to run 2:14:04, a world record at the time. Sunday is her first Chicago since then, and the 32-year-old arrives in some of the best form of her career after winning Tokyo in March in a course record of 2:14:29, her fastest marathon in seven years. She used the Great North Run on Sept. 13 as a tune-up and won that in 1:06:15, though she told K24 Digital she still felt she needed “to step up my speed and target a faster time than what I managed today.” Our full profile of Kosgei has the rest of her story.

Hawi Feysa ran through halfway with Tanzania’s Magdalena Shauri in 1:07:30 last year, dropped her at 30K and pulled away from Megertu Alemu over the last 12K to win in 2:14:57, more than two minutes clear. Kosgei has finished ahead of her both times they have raced each other, in Abu Dhabi in 2023 and in Tokyo in March, where Feysa was third, 3:10 back. When the field was announced in July, the Ethiopian said in a statement that she expects defending the title to be harder this year, and that “the most important thing is to fight for a place on the podium.”

Kebede, Alemu and Lokedi

Sutume Kebede, who won Tokyo in 2024 and 2025, was second here in 2024, and her 2:15:55 is the third-fastest best in the field. Alemu has made the podium in both of her Chicago starts, third in 2023 and second last year, running 2:17 both times, and her best is 2:16:34 from London in 2024. Both raced Tokyo in March as well, where Kosgei and Kebede had the race to themselves before 30K. Kebede could not stay with her after that and finished fourth, given the same 2:17:39 as Feysa, with Alemu fifth in 2:18:50.

Sharon Lokedi, 32, is the hardest runner in the field to read. The Kenyan won New York on her debut in 2022 and has won Boston in each of the last two years, including a course record of 2:17:22 in 2025, but every one of her eight marathons has been in New York, in Boston or at the Paris Olympics, where she was fourth. Chicago is her first flat marathon, and LetsRun’s Jonathan Gault rates her as having “at least 2:14 fitness, and perhaps considerably more.” Each of her three marathon wins came from a late move, which could serve her well if the leaders go out quickly and pay for it in the closing miles. We looked at her career in more detail in her elite field profile.

The Rest of the Sub-2:20 Runners

Brillian Kipkoech came into the Hamburg Marathon in April with a best of 2:23:56 and left with a course record of 2:17:05, nearly seven minutes quicker, after going through halfway in 1:08:42 and pulling away from Rebecca Tanui to win by 1:20. “I never thought I could break the course record,” the 31-year-old Kenyan said afterward. Only four women in Sunday’s field have run faster.

Degitu Azimeraw has a 2:17:58 best from London in 2021, and in December she won the Kolkata 25K by 52 seconds from Kebede. Loice Chemnung and Mary Ngugi-Cooper finished fourth and fifth here last year, in 2:18:24 and 2:19:26, and both made the podium behind Lokedi at Boston in April, Chemnung in second and Ngugi-Cooper in third. Joan Kilimo, who ran her 2:18:40 best in Barcelona in March, Magdalyne Masai (2:18:58 in Frankfurt in 2024) and Fantu Worku, third in Dubai in February in 2:19:08, complete the 12 women in the field with sub-2:20 bests.

The Americans

Susanna Sullivan, a middle school math teacher from Virginia, ran her 2:21:56 personal best here in 2024, finishing seventh as the first American, and was fourth at the World Championships in Tokyo in September 2025, the highest finish by an American woman at a world marathon championship since 2017. Her spring was quieter, with 19th at Boston in 2:28:35.

Natosha Rogers was the top American here last year in sixth, running her best of 2:23:28, and Dakotah Popehn was a place behind her in 2:24:20. Popehn, who has a memoir on the way, ran 2:24:04 at Boston in April. Molly Born, who won the U.S. title at the California International Marathon in December, is entered as well.

Emma Grace Hurley, 28, makes her marathon debut on Sunday after the best year of her career. She broke Deena Kastor’s 21-year-old American 8K record at the Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago in March, won the U.S. 10-mile title in April and ran 1:06:23 for fifth in the half-marathon at the World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen last month, helping the U.S. women to team silver. She told LetsRun that she is “confident that my fitness is right around the 2:20 mark,” while adding, “But again, it’s not about the time.”

Two 43-year-olds will also be racing each other for the masters prize. Sara Hall has the fastest best of any American in the field, 2:20:32 from 2020, and holds the American masters record of 2:23:45, and she was second to Born at CIM in 2:24:36. Des Linden, the 2018 Boston champion, is running Chicago as part of her build toward a first 100-miler later this fall.

Weather, Start Time and Prize Money

In an email to runners this week, organizers set their alert level at yellow for a warm race morning, with the National Weather Service expecting the overnight low to stay around 62 F before a high near 72 F on Sunday. A warm start like that tends to cost the whole field time, and it should make Sunday more about places than personal bests.

The professional women start alongside the professional men at 7:30 a.m. CT. The winner takes $100,000 and the top American $15,000. Our guide to how to watch the race has the TV and streaming options, and Marathon Handbook’s own live watch-along on YouTube starts about half an hour before the gun.