Capping off a banner year, Jess McClain ran 2:27:19 for eighth place in the 2024 Sara Vaughn Is Top American at NYC Marathon. The time was less than two minutes off her personal best and placed her second among Americans, behind Sara Vaughn, who finished sixth in 2:26:56.
NYC was the fourth marathon finish for McClain, who’s self-coached, and her first World Marathon Major. She takes home $15,000 for second in the USA division.
McClain—and eight other Americans, including Vaughn, Kellyn Taylor, and Olympian Dakotah Popehn—came through the halfway mark in 1:14:00, a 5:39 pace, with a lead pack of 20. Around the 15-mile mark, on the Queensboro Bridge, a lead pack of 10—with Vaughn the only American—broke away. By 30K, McClain was 6 seconds back.
There behind the leaders, she continued at a steady clip, covering the distance between 30K and 35K in 17:19, 5:34 pace, and between 35K and 40K in 17:33, 5:39 pace, during which time she moved up from 11th place to 8th place. A final mile of 5:35 carried her to the finish line safely in the top 10.
The strong finish comes after an extended block of marathon training. As the fourth-place finisher at the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando this past February, McClain was the alternate for Team USA. She trained through the sweltering Phoenix summer as if she might have to step up, and the week before the race, got the call to fly to Paris because an athlete’s health was in question (she wasn’t told whose, at the time).
But all three athletes toed the line. Fiona O’Keefe, visibly limping, dropped out before the 5K mark. McClain watched from the sidelines, then returned home to Arizona and kept training.
McClain—a former standout at Stanford University who’d spent several years away from pro running—burst onto the marathoning scene in a bright-pink top at the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando this past February.
It was her third marathon—she won the Mesa Marathon in February 2022 in 2:33:35, then earned her spot in Orlando with a 2:29:25 at Grandma’s Marathon in June 2023. But thanks to her new name (she was Jess Tonn before she married Connor McClain in 2021) and her break from the elite scene, she hadn’t been flagged by many as a contender. So spectators and media alike did a double-take as she closed hard and finished fourth in 2:25:46, only 15 seconds behind third-place Dakotah Lindwurm (now Popehn).
Afterward, she signed a new contract with Brooks and decided to make peace with the track, from which she’d stepped away in 2018. She toed the line again in the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, and once again finished fourth, in 32:04.57.
She advanced a few places at road races this fall, finishing second in 1:06:50 at the USATF 20K Championships on Sept. 2, then winning the USATF 10K Championships, hosted by the Cow Harbor 10K in Northport, New York, in a course-record 31:40 Dakotah Popehn Is 17th at the NYC Marathon.
While today was her first NYC Marathon, McClain has crossed the finish line here before—she ran the USATF 5K Championships the day before the marathon in 2019. That day, she finished a surprise later in the month—a feat she said beforehand helped her visualize the final stretch of the marathon.
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
