More than 7,000 runners poured through the streets of Lincoln, Nebraska on Sunday morning for the 49th edition of the Lincoln Marathon and Half-Marathon, with Sioux Center’s Jacob Vander Plaats and Omaha’s Taylor Somers taking the marathon titles. Vander Plaats stopped the clock in 2:21:13 to win the men’s race, while Somers crossed the line in 2:39:59 to take the women’s crown in front of a hometown-heavy field on the Nebraska state-capital course.
The combined marathon and half-marathon entry was up sharply on previous years, organisers said, continuing the steady rebuild of the event since the post-pandemic dip and pushing it back towards the 10,000-runner figures the Lincoln Track Club used to draw in the late 2010s. Around 2,000 volunteers staffed the aid stations and intersections, a turnout that has long made Lincoln one of the better-resourced mid-tier marathons in the American Midwest.
The half-marathon, which always attracts the bigger entry, produced a tidy family double for the Moore household of Wichita, Kansas. Adam Moore took the men’s race in 1:05:04, with Rita Moore winning the women’s in 1:15:35, both of them comfortably clear of their nearest pursuers and both punching their tickets back to next year’s elite invite list. Conditions were favourable but breezy on the second half of the loop, with morning temperatures sitting in the low double figures Celsius.
Lincoln’s appeal continues to rest on the same combination it has used for decades: a fast, gently rolling course that finishes inside Memorial Stadium, a strong wheelchair and athletes-with-disabilities programme, and a community-run organisation that ploughs proceeds back into youth running and local park maintenance. Race director comments after the finish stressed that this year’s field was the most diverse the event had drawn, with all 50 states represented for only the second time.
Attention now turns to the 50th edition in 2027, which the Lincoln Track Club has already begun marketing as the centrepiece of its calendar. Organisers said they will pursue an upgraded elite athlete budget for the milestone year and explore a renewed link-up with USA Track & Field around the half-marathon, an arrangement Lincoln last hosted in 2018. For Vander Plaats and Somers, however, the immediate focus is the summer road circuit and a likely tilt at autumn marathon major qualifying times.