Galen Rupp Breaks the American Masters Marathon Record in Chicago

Galen Rupp set a new American masters marathon record at the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, finishing 11th in 2:06:55 five months after his 40th birthday. Race officials confirmed the record after the finish, NBC Chicago reported, and the margin is a big one. The previous U.S. best for men aged 40 to 44 was 2:10:02, run by Elkanah Kibet at the 2024 Olympic Trials, so Rupp has taken 3:07 off it.

It was the quickest marathon Rupp has run in five years, since he finished second on this course in 2:06:35 in 2021, and a long way from the 2:09:41 he managed here 12 months ago in his first marathon back from hip surgery. He had already gone under Kibet’s mark this spring, running 2:08:15 at the Boston Marathon in April, but that run was never going to count. He was still 39, and Boston’s point-to-point course does not meet the criteria for records. He turned 40 on May 8.

Rupp was the fourth American home in a race won by Amos Kipruto in 2:01:09. Clayton Young, racing on a torn hamstring tendon, led the U.S. men in seventh, with Charles Hicks eighth and Vinny Mauri 10th in 2:06:45, only 10 seconds ahead of Rupp. Mauri was running just his second marathon, six months after a 2:05:54 debut at Glass City.

A Record That Has Moved Five Minutes in Seven Years

Until 2019 the American masters record was Meb Keflezighi’s 2:12:20. Bernard Lagat took 10 seconds off it that July, running 2:12:10 at the Gold Coast Marathon in Australia at 44, and Abdi Abdirahman lowered it to 2:10:03 when he finished third at the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta, according to USATF. He was 43. Kibet’s run in Orlando four years later improved on Abdirahman’s time by a single second.

Rupp is now more than five minutes faster than the record stood in the summer of 2019, and his time stands up against the rest of the world as well. The world best for a man over 40 belongs to Kenenisa Bekele, who ran 2:04:15 for second at the 2024 London Marathon at 41. Until Spain’s Ayad Lamdassem ran 2:06:25 in Seville in February 2022, no man over 40 had ever run as fast as Rupp did on Sunday; the world best before that was the 2:07:50 Mark Kiptoo ran in Frankfurt in 2018.

Chicago Remains Rupp’s Race

Sunday was Rupp’s seventh Chicago Marathon, and his time was the third-fastest of the six he has finished there, behind 2:06:21 in 2018 and 2:06:35 in 2021. He won the race in 2017 in 2:09:20 and is still the last American man to do so. Every Chicago he has completed has been quicker than Kibet’s old record.

The two years before this one were hard. Rupp had hip surgery in 2024, after finishing 16th at the Olympic Trials in Orlando, and went 17 months without racing, LetsRun reported last year. This season he has been much closer to the runner who won Olympic silver over 10,000m in London in 2012 and marathon bronze in Rio four years later. In August he ran just over 61 minutes at the Antrim Coast Half Marathon in Northern Ireland, and on Sunday he finished only 48 seconds outside the marathon best of 2:06:07 he set in Prague in 2018, when he was 32.