2026 Chicago Marathon Elite Field: Sharon Lokedi

Sharon Lokedi at a Glance

Personal Bests

• Marathon: 2:17:22 (Boston, April 21, 2025)
• Half-marathon: 1:05:00 (Copenhagen, Sept. 14, 2025)
• 10K: 31:06 (Manchester, May 22, 2022)

Major Results

• New York City Marathon: 2022
• Boston Marathon: 2025, 2026
• NCAA 10,000m: 2018 (32:09.20)
• Olympic Games: fourth, Paris 2024 (2:23:14)

Records

• Boston Marathon course record: 2:17:22 (2025). Still current.
• NYC Half course record: 1:07:04 (2025). Since broken by Hellen Obiri, who ran 1:06:33 in 2026.
• NCAA Championships 10,000m meet record: 32:09.20 (2018). Since broken, first by Parker Valby (31:46.09 in 2024) and then by Pamela Kosgei, who holds it at 31:17.82 (2025).

Profile

• Country: Kenya
• Born: March 10, 1994 (age 32)
• College: University of Kansas
• Coach: Stephen Haas
• Training base: Flagstaff, Ariz.
• Sponsor: Under Armour

Marathon Results

Year	Race	Place	Time
2022	New York City Marathon	1st	2:23:23
2023	New York City Marathon	3rd	2:27:33
2024	Boston Marathon	2nd	2:22:45
2024	Paris Olympic Games	4th	2:23:14
2024	New York City Marathon	9th	2:27:45
2025	Boston Marathon	1st	2:17:22
2025	New York City Marathon	2nd	2:20:07
2026	Boston Marathon	1st	2:18:51

Sharon Lokedi has run eight marathons, won three of them and finished on the podium at six, and every one of them has been in New York, Boston or Paris, on courses that reward patience and racing sense far more than raw speed. Chicago on Sunday will be the first flat, record-eligible marathon of her career, and it should give the clearest answer yet to how fast the two-time Boston champion can run.

From Kansas to a Debut Win in New York

Lokedi came to the University of Kansas from Kenya in 2015 to study nursing, and she left four years later as one of the most decorated distance runners in the school’s history. Her fifth place at the 2016 NCAA Cross Country Championships was the best finish by a Kansas runner at the meet in more than 50 years, and in 2018 she won the NCAA outdoor 10,000m title in 32:09.20, a meet record that lasted until 2024. She finished her college career with 10 All-America honors and 12 Big 12 titles.

She turned professional with Under Armour and moved to Flagstaff, where Haas coaches her. Her marathon debut came at the 2022 New York City Marathon, on a day when the city set a record high of 75 F for the date. Lokedi was one of three women still in contention when the race entered Central Park, alongside Lonah Chemtai Salpeter and Gotytom Gebreslase, and she pulled away over the final mile to win in 2:23:23, just seven seconds ahead of Salpeter.

The Years Spent Chasing Hellen Obiri

New York in 2023 was a slow, tactical race that came down to a sprint, and Lokedi finished third in 2:27:33, only 10 seconds behind Obiri and 12 seconds ahead of Brigid Kosgei. The following April she was second at Boston, eight seconds behind Obiri again.

That result was meant to earn her a place on Kenya’s Olympic team, but Athletics Kenya picked Kosgei instead. “That day I was just broken,” Lokedi said later, in an interview published by Running USA. Kosgei then withdrew injured in early July, which left Lokedi about six weeks to get ready for Paris. She ran with the leaders in the heat until 41K and finished fourth in 2:23:14, four seconds outside the bronze medal Obiri won. Three months later she was ninth in New York in 2:27:45.

Two Boston Titles

By the 2025 Boston Marathon, Lokedi had lost four races in a row to Obiri, according to LetsRun. She lost contact with the lead group after a 4:48 16th mile, worked her way back by mile 18 and went clear around mile 24, winning in 2:17:22. That took 2:37 off the course record that had stood since 2014 and was 19 seconds faster than Obiri, who had been going for a third straight Boston title.

Obiri had the better of her again in New York that November. The two of them and Sheila Chepkirui all finished under the old course record, and it was Obiri who broke away in the last mile, winning in 2:19:51 to Lokedi’s 2:20:07. Between those two marathons, Lokedi ran her half-marathon best of 1:05:00 for second place in Copenhagen.

She came back to Boston in April this year having left her own watch charging at the hotel, and raced in one she had borrowed from a friend of her coach’s, with settings she did not know. She sat in a pack of about a dozen women until mile 21 near Boston College, then ran the 5K from 35K to 40K in 14:48, with a 4:35 24th mile in the middle of it. Her winning time of 2:18:51 put her 44 seconds clear of Loice Chemnung, with Mary Ngugi-Cooper third.

“I was just like be patient, be patient,” she told reporters afterward, LetsRun reported. John Korir also defended the men’s title that day, the first time both Boston champions had repeated in the same year since Cosmas Ndeti and Uta Pippig in 1995.

What to Expect in Chicago

On paper, Lokedi is sixth in the women’s field, which has seven women who have broken 2:18. Kosgei ran 2:14:04 here in 2019 and opened this year with a 2:14:29 course record in Tokyo. Defending champion Hawi Feysa has run 2:14:57, Sutume Kebede 2:15:55, Megertu Alemu 2:16:34 and Brillian Kipkoech 2:17:05.

Those times were run on fast, flat courses, and Lokedi’s has not been. Boston is a point-to-point course with a net drop, which keeps its times off the record books, but it also has the Newton Hills and no pacers, and Lokedi has broken 2:19 there twice. LetsRun’s Jonathan Gault wrote in his Chicago preview that on what she has already done, she could run 2:14 or quicker on a course like this one.

How she races will matter as much as how fit she is. Every marathon she has won, she has won late: over the last mile in New York, at mile 24 in Boston in 2025 and from mile 21 this year. In Chicago, a paced first half will probably be faster than anything she has had to follow before, and the question is whether she goes with it or lets the leaders go and trusts her finish.

Two of the women she beat in Boston in April, Chemnung and Ngugi-Cooper, are in the field, and so is Kosgei, whose injury gave Lokedi her place in Paris. Gault’s preview cited forecasts of 61 F at the start rising to 67 F, which would slow the whole field, though warm days have not troubled Lokedi much in the past: she won her debut on a record-warm day in New York and raced for an Olympic medal in the Paris heat.

The professional women start in Grant Park at 7:30 a.m. CT, and our Chicago Marathon guide has the rest of our race coverage.