Zouhair Talbi and Jess McClain run the fastest times ever for Americans at the Boston Marathon

BOSTON (AP) — Zouhair Talbi and Jess McClain ran the fastest times ever for Americans at the Boston Marathon on Monday, both finishing fifth in their respective divisions.

Talbi finished in 2 hours, 3 minutes, 45 seconds in the men’s race. McClain finished in 2:20:49 in the women’s competition. There were seven American men and 12 American women in the top 20, including four women in the top 10.

“I think we’re in an era in distance running, on the men and women’s sides, but especially the women’s side, where we’re all making each other so much better every time we line up with one another,” McClain said. “And I think it’s just going to get stronger and stronger.”

That’s what’s it’s going to take, Talbi said, to take American distance running to the next level.

“We need to push each other, everyone needs to be in the pack,” said Talbi, who competed in the 2024 Paris Olympics for Morocco and became an American citizen last year.

Both were pleasantly surprised by their fast times. Talbi said he was more focused on trying to catch the runner ahead of him, which pushed him to run faster. McClain said she tries to ignore her watch during a race.

Talbi won the Houston Marathon in January in 2:05:45, a course record. He said he felt confident heading into Boston since he had achieved his personal best times at races this year.

“Everything was clicking, everything was good,” he said. “And I was like, this is the day.”

McClain finished seventh in her Boston debut last year and was the top American woman that time, too.

“Obviously I wanted to come in and defend the first American title, and to do that on a day like today with amazing conditions and to run the time that I knew was in me, at some point in the wheelhouse of what I can do, is really awesome,” she said.

Defending champion John Korir broke the Boston Marathon course record to win the men’s race in 2:01:52 — the fifth-fastest marathon of all time. Sharon Lokedi joined her fellow Kenyan as a back-to-back champion, winning the women’s race in 2:18:51.

Last month at the U.S. half marathon championships in Atlanta, McClain was ahead by a wide margin with about 1.5 miles to go when she and three other runners followed the guide vehicle on a wrong turn. Track and field’s international governing body decided to allow seven Americans — instead of the usual four — to compete at the world championships in Denmark.

McClain said she made a far smaller U-turn on Monday, too. She dropped her bottle and went back to pick it up, then had to catch up with the lead pack.

“We all know what happened in Atlanta, I’ve been a half mile off course, so a few seconds is not going to throw me,” she said.

The previous records for American runners in Boston were set by Ryan Hall in 2011 and Shalane Flanagan in 2014.

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This story corrects that four American women finished in the top 10, not five.

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