Keira D’Amato leads a stacked Boston field of American women

Boston Marathon

“If not for the Boston Marathon and the stories of the Boston Marathon, I may have never even attempted to run a marathon.”

By Amin Touri, The Boston Globe

April 7, 2025 | 12:18 PM

4 minutes to read

Very little about Keira D’Amato’s rise to the marathoning elite was conventional.

She was an All-American running for American University from 2002-06, but her professional career never got off the ground. Injuries sidelined her — seemingly for good — by 2009.

D’Amato got her real estate license, had two kids, and settled into life as a “hobby jogger.” The 2013 Boston Marathon attacks inspired her to run her first marathon later that year to try to qualify for Boston. She fell very short, having to walk at stages en route to a time of 3 hours, 49 minutes, 49 seconds, and shelved her running career for a few years.

“I don’t think there’s too many pros in the field that have failed to qualify on their first try‚” D’Amato joked last week.

After signing her husband up for the 2017 Shamrock Marathon as a little gag gift for Christmas, D’Amato, then 32, decided to sign herself up too. She finished in a respectable 3:14.

It was enough to spark a return to serious competition. D’Amato’s rise from there was meteoric.

By 35, she was racing at the US Olympic Marathon Trials. At 37, she ran a stunning 2:19:12 to break the American record. And at 40, she’s leading the most-impressive field of American women in history into this month’s Boston Marathon.

“This year is just unbelievably deep,” D’Amato told the Globe. “I feel, yeah, definitely excited. Really just proud to be part of this wave, especially in female marathoning right now, and just to feel like I had a little hand, especially on the American side, pushing that bar a little bit forward. I feel really proud to be part of it.”

It’s easy for even the most keen marathoning observers to forget that this is D’Amato’s second time in Boston, as her first in 2018 was, fittingly, so unusual.

That 3:14 Shamrock in 2017 was followed by a 2:47 in Richmond that year, enough — with a little of what D’Amato half-jokingly calls “begging” — to earn a spot starting with the pro women.

She paid her own way, handled her own lodging, then braved the monsoon conditions to finish in 2:56:44. Seven years later, she’s back as a headlining star.

“Boston is what brought me into the marathon,” D’Amato said. “If not for the Boston Marathon and the stories of the Boston Marathon, I may have never even attempted to run a marathon.

“So it’s so special to me to be coming back now, and not as someone who, before, I registered myself, paid for my own flight. That’s normal, and everyone does that, but now it feels like such a privilege and a gift that they’ve invited me to come, they’ve helped me with travel arrangement. It’s surreal that I’ve gotten to experience both sides.”

D’Amato is among the favorites to be the top American woman on Patriots’ Day, but she’s got plenty of competition.

The group features 11 women with personal bests faster than 2 hours, 25 minutes. It includes Emma Bates and Nell Rojas, who have each been the top American twice over the last four years; Sara Hall, the fifth-fastest American woman in history and a two-time podium finisher at a World Marathon major; Dakotah Popehn, a US Olympian in Paris last summer; and Des Linden, the 2018 champion and Boston ever-present.

D’Amato, Hall, and Linden are part of a particularly special group who continue to compete at an elite level after their 40th birthdays.

“There’s a whole pack of women that are still crushing at a really high level‚” D’Amato said. “I don’t think we’re the outliers. I’m really proud to be part of the group that is pushing that forward.

“I get messages, like, daily from people saying, ‘Oh, I’m in my late 30s, and I thought, you know, my best days were behind me, and then I saw you, and you gave me permission to go after it again.’ And that is a really powerful thing to hear.”

As impressive a résumé as D’Amato has built over the last few years, she is coming off a disappointing 2024. She was a favorite to make the Olympic team for Paris, but struggled at the Olympic Trials and dropped out at mile 20.

She moved to Utah in the lead-up to the 2024 Chicago Marathon, training under coach Ed Eyestone and alongside top American men Clayton Young and Conner Mantz. That race was even more frustrating, with D’Amato suffering a foot injury and dropping out after the 10K mark.

D’Amato said she’s been pleased with her progress in a somewhat compressed build into Boston, her second under Eyestone. However it pans out, she’s already accomplished more than she ever could have imagined.

“At the end of that race in 2018 if you would have said, like, predict your wildest dreams for yourself and running, [they] would have fell well short of where I’m at right now,” D’Amato said. “When you zoom out and think about it that way … I’m so grateful, I’m so thankful.”

Fields for 5K, pro mile

The BAA will stage its annual 5K and pro mile on marathon weekend, with the races taking place on Saturday, April 19.

The 5K will cover a new route and finish at the Marathon finish line on Boylston Street, rather than back where it started at the Common.

The 5K fields are headlined by top-ranked American road racer Biya Simbassa on the men’s side and 2022 3000-meter steeplechase world champion Norah Jeruto in the women’s race.

Reigning wheelchair division champions Marcel Hug and Eden Rainbow-Cooper also return, each looking to repeat their 5K/Boston Marathon double victories from last year.

The full elite fields for the 5K and pro mile can be found here.