Annie Rodenfels and Habtom Samuel Lead the 2026 Dash to the Finish Line 5K Field

Annie Rodenfels has won the professional women’s race at the Dash to the Finish Line 5K in each of the last three years, and she will go for a fourth on Saturday, Oct. 31, the morning before the New York City Marathon. New York Road Runners named the pro fields on Wednesday for the race, which starts by the United Nations and ends on the marathon’s finish line in Central Park, with more than 11,000 runners entered behind the professionals.

Her first two wins came when the race doubled as the U.S. 5K Championships, in 15:22 in 2023 and 15:20 a year later. Last November’s race was not a championship, but there were five Olympians on the start line. Rodenfels fell a few steps behind in the final mile and only caught back up in the last 400m before outkicking Kelati to win in 15:33, according to LetsRun’s race report. Elle St. Pierre and Parker Valby finished within four seconds of her. The event record still belongs to Kelati, who ran 15:15.3 in 2022.

Rodenfels ran the half-marathon at the World Road Running Championships in Copenhagen in September. “Being in New York City during marathon weekend brings an energy you can’t find anywhere else, and I’m looking forward to soaking up the atmosphere and crowd support once again,” she said in the NYRR announcement.

Josette Andrews, the 2025 U.S. 5K champion, has the fastest road best on the start list, 15:06 from Indianapolis last year. She was sixth over 5,000m at the 2025 World Championships, and this year she finished second at the Fifth Avenue Mile in 4:16.1. Behind her and Rodenfels come Bailey Hertenstein (15:16), the 2025 NACAC silver medalist at 5,000m, and Elly Henes (15:22). Henes won the NCAA 5,000m title in 2021, three decades after her mother won the same race.

Rachael Rudel won her first national title in September, taking the U.S. 20K Championships in New Haven in 1:04:58, nearly a minute ahead of Elena Hayday, according to USATF. Back in May she ran 32:46 for third at the Bolder Boulder, and no American woman has gone faster in the race’s history. Ednah Kurgat, the 2023 U.S. cross-country champion, was one of the three runners sent off course at this year’s U.S. Half Marathon Championships. Whittni Morgan, a 5,000m Olympian in Paris, is racing as a new mother, and Katelyn Tuohy, a four-time individual NCAA champion, hasn’t raced since she ran 15:53 at the Boston 5K in April.

Habtom Samuel Makes His New York Debut

Amon Kemboi won the men’s race last year on his first visit, running 13:50 to edge Cole Sprout by a second in a finish so close that the first four men were covered by three seconds. The Kenyan has kept a light schedule since, and Oct. 31 will be only his second race of the year. “Winning the Abbott Dash 5K last year helped me perfect my ‘tape-break pose’ that I hope to use in my future marathon career,” Kemboi said.

Habtom Samuel has not lost a race since he turned pro in July. He won the Beach to Beacon 10K and then the Falmouth Road Race in 30:53, the first time anyone had broken 31 minutes on that course. Before that, still at the University of New Mexico, where he won five NCAA titles, he set a course record of 59:01 in his half-marathon debut in Houston and ran 12:57.22 for 5,000m in Los Angeles, an Eritrean record. This will be his first NYRR race, and it comes only eight days before the Boston Half on Nov. 8, where he and Kemboi are both entered.

Edwin Kurgat has the fastest road 5K in the field, 13:23 from Boston this year, almost identical to the event record of 13:23.5 that Abdihamid Nur set in 2022. In July the Kenyan Olympian was fourth in the 10,000m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, missing bronze by 0.70 seconds. Australia’s Morgan McDonald, a two-time Olympian and four-time NCAA champion, hasn’t raced since May.

Five former New York City Marathon champions, Franca Fiacconi, Meb Keflezighi, Uta Pippig, Paula Radcliffe and Hendrick Ramaala, will also run as NYRR marks 50 years of the five-borough course, and the heads of the Boston, Berlin, Sydney and Tokyo marathons will race one another. NYRR streams the professional races on its YouTube channel from 8:20 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET, and the marathon starts on Staten Island the next morning.

The Full Professional Fields

Women

Men

i = indoors; + = split en route in a longer race; NR = national record