A long dirt driveway leads from the door of Desiree Linden’s Lake Michigan home out to the road and the miles of rolling hills that wind past dairy farms and fruit stands. It’s mid-July, 8:15 a.m., and the temperature has already climbed into the 80s with the humidity hanging like a sweater.
No one would fault Linden for wanting to linger at that door, have another cup of her husband’s home-roasted coffee, stare at the blues and grays of the lake. She could, for a minute at least, savor the fact that she finally bagged the big one. The race she had worked toward for more than a decade—the Boston Marathon.
That marathon win, three months earlier, was the first of her career and came after a string of second-place finishes had her wondering if she’d ever break the tape. It was also the first by an American woman at Boston in 33 years, coming during a Biblical rain that left the sport’s biggest names struggling with hypothermia and the second-place competitor more than four minutes behind. (God: “Bring two of everything.” Noah: “I’ll need a women’s champion and a men’s champion. Linden and Kawauchi, hop aboard the Ark.”)
Today, she’s only a couple weeks removed from the exhausting post-marathon blitz of media interviews, race appearances, podcast recordings, and surreal events, including a stroll down the red carpet at the Billboard Music Awards, where she presented Taylor Swift the award for top female artist. With 16 weeks until her next race, the New York City Marathon, she has time to take it easy.
But for Linden, there is always work to be done—work she loves—and the morning isn’t getting any cooler. Today calls for 16 miles, and she’s ready: Oakleys, black Brooks sports bra and blue shorts, pink Ghost 11s over ankle socks, wedding ring, engagement ring, Garmin. With her husband, Ryan, an Ironman triathlete, at her side, she walks down the driveway, clicks on her watch, and they break into a trot. They don’t even wait to get to the road.
For years, fans knew Linden—“Des” to anyone who’s really a fan—as the chill, head-down worker, the plugger who never hid her goals or her disappointment when, yet again, she came close but didn’t win. A résumé filled with second and fourth places combined with Linden’s 5-foot-1, 96-pound frame—petite, even for an elite marathoner—make viewers think of her as an underdog. And while her career statistics show sterling performances that put her among the fastest American women of all time (her PR, a 2:22:38 at Boston in 2011, ranks sixth on the list), people tend to forget everything but a W. Even as Linden strode down the final stretch to the 2018 Boston finish line and the biggest moment of her career, Paul Swangard, commentating the race live for NBC Sports, called her a “blue-collar kind of runner.”
Linden hasn’t watched a replay of that race, but sometimes when she’s in the middle of a run, coasting along the dirt roads surrounding her Michigan home, she’ll think about it and literally laugh out loud. “It’s kind of comical,” she says, chuckling again at the absurdity of the day, how the race unfolded. “I’m like, ‘This can’t be real. That did not happen; this is not real.’”
It was a bizarre race. In a deluge of rain, with temperatures in the high 30s and 25-mph headwinds, Linden didn’t even bother to warm up. During the early miles, she thought about dropping out. But she instead opted to aid her fellow Americans—first Shalane Flanagan, who took a much-ballyhooed bathroom break near the 12-mile mark and emerged from the portajohn to find Linden jogging nearby, ready to help her rejoin the lead pack. Then at the halfway point, Linden moved to block the wind for Molly Huddle.
By mile 18, with the Newton hills still to come, Linden gapped Huddle without even trying. She thought to herself, “I’m actually, probably, the strongest person here right now.” Linden took the lead around mile 23 and pressed all the way to the finish. She was 20 paces from the tape before she finally let herself celebrate with a double-armed flex. Fans erupted. In a Tweet that spoke for Linden’s legions of followers, Flanagan wrote: “My legs have never been more sore. They hurt so bad I couldn’t sleep. But Des Linden won the Boston Marathon so life is good.”
Boston gave the 35-year-old levity she hasn’t felt in years—if ever—but it did not make her complacent. In fact, the opposite: This win allows Linden to take risks in training, racing, and coaching.
“It’s incredibly freeing,” she says. “If I run crappers for the rest of the way, it’s okay.” Of course, she adds, that’s not what she’s planning on. “I’m shaking things up so I can see if there’s another leap or another level.”
With one goal accomplished, others have replaced it: win another major, become the first American woman to make three Olympic marathon teams.
Skeptics abound, and the same folks who think Linden didn’t really win Boston so much as survive it on a once-in-a-century weather day. Writers at LetsRun.com are already betting against her for 2020, predicting Huddle, Jordan Hasay, and Amy Cragg will make the team for Tokyo. In an August article, still two years out from the Tokyo Games, LetsRun cofounder Robert Johnson wrote, “Linden is very consistent and a grinder, but I just don’t think her ceiling is as high as the others.”
Do the naysayers get to her? “Whatever,” Linden says. “People say, ‘You’re a super hard worker’ and that’s probably better anyways, so I’m fine with it.” She’s also used to it. She’s been hearing that her whole life.
Sara Vaughn Is Top American at NYC Marathon, Linden grew up in Chula Vista, California. Her dad worked in construction, her mom was at AT&T. She and her older sister, Natalie, were always athletic. Linden played four years of varsity high school soccer, a winter sport in Southern California, which left the fall for cross country and the spring for track. Linden was “immediately exceptional,” Natalie Davila says. “She was always beating the boys. Ninth grade, varsity meet, beating the senior boys.”
For college, Arizona State’s coach, Walt Drenth, appealed to her with his no-nonsense approach and the culture he had created, where working hard was expected. Linden describes the vibe as, “Our team is really good. If you want to come here, you’re not going to make it unless you bust your ass.”
Her parents, who didn’t see professional running as a career for anyone, let alone their daughter, couldn’t believe she would turn down Cal-Berkeley and its stellar academic reputation for Arizona State. But Linden’s mind was made up—and so was Drenth’s. “From a personality standpoint, I kind of like low-key people,” he says. “So I liked her.”
At Arizona State, Linden took the student part of student-athlete seriously. She wasn’t training like a pro—she was training like the college kid she was, working less in the offseason than some teammates, studying more. She was All-American in cross-country and on the track, but never close to winning an NCAA title. Teammate Amy Cragg remembers “glimmers of really special things” from Linden at workouts, and Drenth recalls telling her, “You know, if you take this seriously, you can be pretty good at it.” The talent was there, but she was still dipping her toe in the water.
“I felt like I was pretty good for not being a full-time runner,” Linden says. “I could do workouts with Amy, with Victoria Jackson, people who were winning national championships. I thought if I committed to it 100 percent, maybe I could be just as good.”
That moment came after graduation. In the fall of 2005, Linden moved to Rochester Hills, Michigan, to train with the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, coached by brothers Kevin and Keith Hanson. For the first time in her life, she was all in on running. “Once you leave college and you decide, ‘This is what I’m doing,’ you invest fully,” she says. She also suspects that, had she trained harder in college, she might have burned out years ago. Instead, she’s in her third decade of top-level competition.
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If you’ve ever questioned Linden’s raw talent, you’d be no different than Ryan Linden. He had his doubts when he first talked to the new girl on the Hansons team during a car ride to represent Brooks at the 2005 Detroit Marathon expo. Skeptical about her and her credentials coming out of ASU, he pressed her to list her accomplishments.
“I did make the nationals,” she said.
“You’re in the west region. Isn’t it super easy to make the nationals out of the west region?” he prodded.
“The Pac-10 is pretty good—Stanford, USC, UCLA,” she shot back.
For years, fans: This guy is an idiot. He has no idea what he’s talking about.
And 18 months later, the pair started dating. That initial sparring quickly turned into an appreciation for each other’s athletic ability. In the 12 years since, the playful joking hasn’t stopped. And neither has the mutual respect and support.
During their long run on that sweltering July morning, they make quick stops for fluids every four miles, sharing a single 32-ounce bottle. He always lets her take the first swig. Later, at a popular brunch spot in Charlevoix, they look over the menu, mumbling about strategy. He orders an omelet, she orders pancakes. They eat exactly half of what’s put in front of them, then switch plates.
Back at their unassuming three-bedroom in Charlevoix, the Lindens’ complementary natures come through, again. The home is a simple crash pad for two athletes and their two dogs (one of which she named Boston). The duo bought the house furnished in 2015, and neither has had the urge to change much, except for a Mill City coffee roaster in the garage. Ryan roasts beans for Linden & True, his new venture with pro runner Ben True. His wetsuit hangs over a downstairs shower, a hall closet is booby-trapped with about 30 pairs of her size 6.5 Brooks.
He does most of the cooking. Trout or salmon on the Weber. Tonight there’s also grilled asparagus, salad, and wine from their next door neighbors, a couple in their late 60s. While he’s grilling, they fall into their familiar teasing. She momentarily blanks on their anniversary when he quizzes her— “September 24. No wait!” she says, while he feigns shock. “August 24. That’s right, August, because I ran Berlin that year, and it’s in September.” She did a 20-miler the morning of the wedding.
After joining the Hansons, Linden was ready to prove herself as a pro and played to what she believed were her strengths—the 5K and 10K. But she was drawn to the marathon distance while watching her teammates train and work out strategies for the event. It sucked her in.
Kevin Hanson assured her that she didn’t have to do a marathon just because her teammates were doing it. After all, giving yourself over to the marathon is a tough road. Winning one requires luck as much as skill, and the best take only two cracks at it each year. Even if their training has gone perfectly, the day has to be perfect, too—you can’t control the weather, the competition. Most elite marathoners retire without a major win.
Linden made her debut at the 2007 Boston Marathon, finishing 18th in 2:44:56, also during a Nor’easter. She was happy, and hooked. Racing through each town, hearing the crowds, learning about the history of the event, figuring out how to meter energy for 26.2 miles—it required more smarts than hammering laps around an oval.
In her second marathon, the 2008 Olympic Trials, Linden was knocking on the door of third place—a qualifying spot—with five miles to go before she hit the wall, slowed a minute per mile, and faded to 13th. Immediately afterward, she began analyzing the race. “It was like, this is a huge puzzle, this is challenging, this is difficult, but I want to master this event,” she says. “It was a very short-lived misery and then it was like, OK, how do I never let that happen again?”
That analytical reaction is classic Linden. She is a thinker, a voracious reader, an intellectual. Her Twitter is peppered with quotes from favorite writers like Joseph Conrad and Joan Didion. For her, the 1500 meters is like a comic strip, the marathon a novel—it appeals to her cerebral nature and keeps her mentally engaged (see Des Linden's Tips for Outsmarting the Marathon).
In the decade since her first Trials, she’s learned what she needs physically for an ideal race: at least 90 miles per week for two months before launching into her official buildup, with 120 to 130 miles for at least four weeks. A half-marathon race on tired legs predicts what she’ll be able to do in the second half of a marathon. And she doesn’t taper much—only for 10 days and only down to 90 miles per week.
In the process, she’s perfected being uncomfortable. “Track is like you put your foot down and you go as hard as you can and try to be the toughest,” she says. “The marathon is putting your foot right on the red line, holding it as long as you can, and then learning how to get stronger and extend that for more of the race.” Every time she does a marathon buildup, she finds that red line advances.
Last summer, 11 years into the marathon, Linden found herself in a funk. After gearing up for the 2016 Olympic Trials (second place), then Rio (seventh), then Boston (fourth), she didn’t have it in her to charge hard after another one. She took the 2017 fall marathon season off. She fished (“Arm day,” she captioned one photo of her catch on the porch), paddled her kayak, and tried to decide whether she really wanted to keep running, training, and sacrificing in pursuit of two races each year that mattered.
The break was necessary, she says. It wasn’t physical; it was mental. “You have to care and you have to love it and you have to show up every day and do the work,” she says. “You can’t do that if you hate it. It forced me to decide whether I love the sport or not, and if I want to compete at this level.”
By the end of September 2017, after five months of hardly running and a training log she called “swiss cheese” because of its gaping holes, Linden felt like she’d had the rest she needed to turn back to the work. At first, only one run a week would feel good. Gradually, though, the good days outnumbered the bad. During that time she did a series of shorter races—5Ks and cross country—where the times that she ran or the place that she finished didn’t matter.
In running those shorter distances, she confirmed what she’s always known: Training for The Big Thing is what matters to her. She didn’t just miss the high stakes and monumental challenge, she craved it. “This is what I do really well,” Linden says. “I can kick your butt at a marathon.” A few months after her fall hiatus, she proved it.
In that same spirit of self-discovery, Linden made a surprising move after her win, parting ways with the Hansons in June after 13 years. It was an amicable split. Linden chose to return to her college mentor, Walt Drenth, who now coaches at Michigan State University.
The decision was equal parts practicality and yearning for more progress, Linden says. She and Ryan spend several months a year at their houses in Charlevoix and Traverse City, four hours northeast of Rochester Hills, where the Hansons group trains. She did her Rio buildup mostly alone in Charlevoix, and she barely saw the group before Boston this year, checking in periodically to update the Hansons on her progress.
She’s also some 14 years older than most of the Hansons team. The recent college grads don’t do the length or volume of training that she does, and they don’t run her paces for workouts. Ryan serves as a more compatible training partner.
Linden also wanted a fresh set of eyes on her training. She sent Drenth her training logs going back to 2010, sliding a body of work as thick as a movie script into an envelope. The persistence was impressive, yes, but she felt like she was looking at a plateau. Same results, different year. A second- or fourth-place finish, in 2:25-something.
In paging through her logs, Drenth was surprised to learn Linden hadn’t been doing any consistent strength training, and he started her back on a gradual program that included body weight squats, planks, and pushups. He also prescribed speed work for the start of her New York City buildup, something she hadn’t done in years, which should help when it’s time to cover late-race surges.
She has no idea what this new approach will predict for New York—and she welcomes that refreshing uncertainty. For years, Linden says, she’d be on the starting line and would feel like she knew exactly how the storyline would play out—“I’m going to run my pace, it’s going to put me around this time.” While the familiarity ensured she wasn’t nervous, it also made major marathons feel mundane.
In August, she hit the track for Drenth’s first speed session, and experienced a fresh wave of excitement for the work. Her marching orders: 5 x 300 meters, 5 x 500 meters, 5 x 400 meters.
On the first interval, she went out way too fast, a very un-Linden-like move. “I was so amped up for it,” she says, psyched to discover her speed still intact. “And I was turning over pretty good by the end.”
This is what I do really well. I can kick your butt at a marathon was easy for fans to find. At the San Diego Rock ’n’ Roll half marathon, she paced the 9-minute milers. At the BAA 10K, she greeted hundreds of entrants after they finished. “I think she spent hours there,” says Mary Kate Shea, who assembles the elite field for Boston Marathon sponsor John Hancock. “It’s not one-sided. She is approachable, she will listen to the stories that all these people have.” In August, Linden was back to Massachusetts for the Falmouth Road Race, and it was the same story: High-fives, selfies, an attentive ear.
She enjoys these moments, even if being the center of attention makes her feel like she needs a nap later. Linden is an introvert—but an honest one. She speaks her mind. “She presents who she is to the world,” Shea says. “I don’t think all athletes are like that. Some hold their personalities a little bit closer to their chest, but Des is out there for the world to get to know.”
Looking ahead to New York, she doesn’t deflect about the depth of the field, which includes returning champion Shalane Flanagan, Molly Huddle, three-time winner Mary Keitany, and 2:18 marathoner Vivian Cheruiyot. But she doesn’t shy away from her chances, either.
“I can compete with all these people,” Linden says. “I think Mary is so good, she has to have an off day to get beat. But she’s having them more frequently. Vivian, on a [flat] London or a Berlin course, she’s untouchable. But courses change up how you get around the distance—it’s not just covering 26.2; it’s running New York.”
Still two months out from the race, Linden is already getting “nervous-excited,” and partly because her own training is so different. “Change is always tricky,” she says. “I want to prove that it wasn’t a total idiotic move—why would you leave [your coaches] when things are going perfectly? But I like it when there’s a lot on the line; there’s a little more to dig deep for. I want to make sure I squeeze everything I can out of the training and do it absolutely right. I’m not going to miss a set of pushups, because what if that’s the set of pushups that costs me two seconds for the win?”
As of late September, things are going “really, really well,” Linden says. And she feels 100 percent healthy.
The upcoming weeks will be more of the same: miles in the morning, miles in the evening. These are prep for New York, but also a near-certain crack at Boston again in 2019, and down the road, the Trials in 2020. For two more years, Linden will have to be consistent—”keep showing up,” as she likes to put it. That could be daunting. But like she runs a marathon, she stays in the moment, taking it one workout at a time, using her head to puzzle out the best approach, and shrugging off the idea of monotony, reveling in the challenge. It’s why she can say simply, “I have the best job in the world.”
