Jess McClain ran the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1 in the same necklace that she’s worn for the last two years.
The pendant dangled over her chest as McClain surged uphill toward the Central Park finish line in what she called the coolest moment of her career.
McClain, after 26 miles on the roads, summoned the energy to pass two-time New York City champ Hellen Obiri of Kenya by 41 hundredths of a second in the final strides.
McClain finished second overall, marking the first podium for a U.S. female or male runner in New York City since Shalane Flanagan was third in her title defense in 2018.
In the days after, the 34-year-old McClain reflected. Was it the race of her life to this point?
“It’s got to be up there, I think so,” she said.
Then she remembered Feb. 3, 2024.
Of all the experiences that New York City could rival, it was actually the Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando — where McClain finished fourth, missing the three-woman team for Paris by 15 seconds.
“Orlando, that was kind of like the catalyst for a lot,” she said. “I think that would be up there in terms of putting myself in it, self belief, all of that stuff. But I think in terms of what’s on paper and the result, yes, I’d probably say (New York City) was pretty much the pinnacle right there so far.”
McClain was the top American finisher not only in New York City, but also in Boston, the nation’s premier spring marathon, in 2025 and 2026.
It bodes well for the Olympic Trials on March 25, 2028, in St. Louis, where the top three women likely make the team for Los Angeles. McClain hopes for a different trials result than her last three.
Olumide “Olu” Olamigoke Jr./Brooks Running
McClain caught the running bug in middle school. A soccer midfielder and “full-blown nerd,” she could beat the boys in her PE class mile.
In 2016, her first full year as a pro after an All-America Stanford tenure, she developed extreme shin pain.
She traveled to compete in the Rio Olympic Trials 5000m. But she scratched after warm-up with, as it turned out, a stress fracture in her tibia. She watched the race from the old Hayward Field stands.
“I think I wanted to quit,” she said. “That was the first time I signed up for therapy. That’s just a testament to how attached to outcomes and results, performances I was. Because at that moment I just felt like a total failure. … My family was there, and I just felt like I’d completely let them down. I felt like I was letting my coach down, Brooks (my shoe sponsor) down. I had nothing else to pull me out of that.”
McClain endured what she called a “multiyear cycle of injury,” as she told 1968 Boston Marathon winner Amby Burfoot. That included plantar fasciitis, bone spurs and a metatarsal fracture.
Her best finish at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships over 2017, 2018 and 2019 was eighth. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she lost all motivation to compete.
McClain, who before the pandemic moved from her professional training residence in Seattle back home to Arizona, put her Stanford bachelor’s and master’s degrees to use.
She poured herself into a career in marketing, and into her personal life. She met Connor, whom she married in 2021.
She still ran regularly, but “kind of soft retired.”
Then McClain saw ads for a local marathon. In her pro running career, she had never raced even a half marathon. But, to celebrate her 30th birthday, she signed up for a 26.2-miler in Mesa, outside Phoenix, in February 2022.
McClain, wearing shoes she bought at Dick’s Sporting Goods the night before, won in 2 hours, 33 minutes, 35 seconds on a net downhill course.
“Realized that competitive nature was still buried deep, deep, deep down,” she said.
McClain kept running. She qualified for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials, which she planned to make her farewell elite race.
She wanted to finish in the top 10. She ran without a shoe contract, unlike the favorites. She felt like she had nothing to lose.
“We can close the chapter feeling pretty fulfilled and move on,” she said.
She crossed the Lake Eola Park finish line in fourth place, just missing the three-woman Olympic team. She found Connor, a Boston Marathon qualifier himself whose support made his wife’s trials build-up enjoyable. She told him that she didn’t want to stop running.
“I had the most fun missing an Olympic team by 15 seconds that I think anybody would have ever had,” she told Emily Abbate.
McClain says now, “That was kind of the turning moment in my brain in terms of, hey, I can enjoy this and be really professional, but have the most fun along the way.”
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 03: Jessica McClain runs through the course during the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon on February 03, 2024 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images)
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Brooks Running reached back out and, as McClain put it, “took a second chance on me” as a sponsor.
“There were a few companies I was talking to that wanted me to either move or spend 12 weeks out of the year at altitude, wherever their respective camps were, which is fine,” she said. “But Brooks was the only company that met me where I’m at in my career, in life right now.”
McClain kept running. She was fourth again in the Olympic Trials 10,000m in June 2024, a distant 23 seconds out of third.
Then, during the Paris Olympics, she got a phone call and was told there was a chance she could be offered a call-up to race as an alternate. McClain took the chance and flew to France the next day, arriving four days before the women’s marathon on the last day of the Games.
Ultimately, she didn’t get into the field. Before going back home, she bought that necklace.
“A memento for showing up and getting on the plane,” she said. “I got it in Paris, and I haven’t taken it off since. I love racing in it. I didn’t earn that (Olympic) spot at all. It wasn’t my spot, and I was so close, and I wanted it so bad. It’s just a reminder and just a thing I could take away with me that also celebrated taking a chance and showing up, even if it didn’t work out.”
After McClain’s runner-up at the New York City Marathon, she wore something else.
She was handed a celebratory American flag post-race for, she believes, the second time in her life. The other was after winning the 2024 Great Cow Harbor Run in Northport, New York, which doubled as the USATF 10km Road Championships.
She also received a text from Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984 in Los Angeles. Benoit Samuelson told McClain to savor the New York City moment and that it was a big win for U.S. women’s marathoning.
“I’m like, ‘Wow, can I print that out and put it somewhere?’” McClain said.
She had an epiphany while standing in a hot shower for five minutes, blood washing off her blistered toes.
“You’re like, ‘What just happened?’ I’ve had a few of those races this year,” McClain said. “It was just one of those moments where everything hits.”
She flew back to Arizona to finish planning for the Love Pup Family Fest in her role as the executive director for the Love Up Foundation, which aids children in the foster care system.
The Love Pup Family Fest, held six days after the New York City Marathon, was a dog adoption and concert series event for 6,500 people, with singer Gavin DeGraw. McClain was slated to emcee because last year’s host couldn’t make it.
McClain grew up in a dog family while watching her mom, Tracy, do social advocate work.
If you read her LinkedIn, you will first learn that McClain works for Love Up before scrolling down to see that she’s also a professional athlete.
“It feels very empowering to know that not much can shake me at this point in my career,” she said. “A fourth-place or a fifth-place finish, God forbid, in St. Louis (at the 2028 Olympic Marathon Trials), I don’t want that to happen. But if it unfortunately were to, I’ll find the next thing to get the best out of myself.”
