2024 Boston Marathon

The women are FLYING.

4:41 24th mile as Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi are battling for the win. It's a 2 woman battle now.

Edna Kiplagat in 3rd as Obiri and Lokedi blew the race open on the downhill 24th mile.

Sisay Lemma if your 2024 Boston Marathon champion as he held on for a convincing win but if the race was 27 miles it might have been interesting.

Top 10 Results

1 Sisay Lemma  ETH-- 02:06:17
2 Mohamed Esa  ETH-- 02:06:58
3 Evans Chebet  KEN -- 02:07:22
4 John Korir  KEN -- 02:07:40
5 Albert Korir KEN-- 02:07:47
6 Isaac Mpofu ZIM -- 02:08:17
7 CJ Albertson USA -- 02:09:53
8 Yuma Morii JPN -- 02:09:59
9 Cybrian Kotut KEN -- 02:10:29
10 Zouhair Talbi MOR -- 02:10:45

There are still 15 women in the lead pack at mile 20. 21 is the biggest hill of the course.

Lemma only lost 14 seconds between mile 23 and 24 and leads by 1:30 so he's got this barring total disaster.

Lemma just lost 30 seconds between 35k (21.7) and 23 miles and lead by 1:44.

So that is equivalent to losing 23 seconds a mile. He was losing 20 seconds a mile.

He needs to lose 32 seconds a mile the final 3.2 to lose the race.

It's on!

At 20 miles Lemma's lead was 2:49 the same as it was at 30k (18.8).

However now at mile 21 it's only 2:29. So he lost 20 seconds on Heartbreak Hill.

But he can lose 20 seconds a mile all the way in and still win the race by 49 seconds. That's how big his lead is.

Des Linden joined the lead pack as the women are not pushing at all. She's now fallen back as they are on 2:25:17 pace at 25k with 19 women in the leadpack and Des in 20th

The women are crawling.

Lead pack of 19 people hit halfway in 72:33 on a great day for running fast. Americans Emma Bates ans Sara Hall were up front 1-2.

At 30k Lemma's lead is EVEN BIGGER. It's now nearly 3 minutes as he's 2:49 now up. He was 2:21 ahead 25k.

That 5k was 15:12 (and included 2.5 miles of uphill running) and the slowest of the race by far.

Here are Lemma's 5k splits so far:

14:21, 14:07, 14:15, 14:30, 14:31, 15:12

But his lead is even bigger.

After 21 it's downhill to the finish. Barring disaster he's got this.

Lemma just ran the uphill 17th mile in 5:02. That sounds super slow but remember it's like 50 feet uphill.

John Kellogg's formula is you slow 2.4 seconds for each 10 foot elevation gain so that would be 12 seconds.

But can we totally trust those splits. 4:27 for 14 seemed super fast?

Of course, they aren't telling us any of this on the broadcast.

The 2 time champ Chebet is now pushing the lead pack at the 1:19:30 mark but he's over 2 minutes behind with 10 miles to go. He has time to bridge the gap but if Lemma keeps running like this it won't happen.

Lemma's lead getting BIGGER.

From the half (13.1 miles) to 25k (15.5) he increased his lead by 32 seconds! Now leads by 2:21.

The next test is the uphills starting now after mile 16.

Chase pack of 5 hits halfway in 62:08. Sondre Moen is top non-African at 62:57 (10th). Elkanah Kibet is the top American at 63:15. CJ Albertson 63:52. Suguro Osako 64:05.

When they set course record in 2011 they hit halfway in 1:01:58 (but had a huge tailwind)

The chase pack was in 1:02:08 today but Lemma is 1:49 ahead of them.

The question now is what happens on mile 17 when he starts going up hill.

Downhill through mile 16. Then mostly uphill till 21.

Women at the hour mark with a huge lead pack and Emma Bates still leading.

He's got a huge lead. Consistently running 4:35-4:40 miles.

Chase pack 1:02:08 for 1:49 behind.

42:43 through 15k for Sisay Lemma -- his lead is up to a massive 1:21.

Usually this sort of thing does not pay off in Boston...https://t.co/0JDG05980a pic.twitter.com/DkMhplXCsR

— Jonathan Gault (@jgault13) April 15, 2024

Women have run first 5 miles in 26:49 which is 2:20:37 pace. American Emma Bates now has the lead.