Kyle King won the 51st Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday in 2:17:31, improving on his winning time from 2025 of 2:18:54 by 1 minute 23 seconds. Racing in the Marines division, King finished almost five minutes clear of the field in a race that began and finished in the Washington, D.C. area and drew more than 30,000 runners, according to pre-race estimates. Results are preliminary and subject to official confirmation.
Daniel Soltys of the UK, running in the Royals division, was second in 2:22:10, with Joseph Reimann third in 2:23:28. Lucas Stalnaker, also from the Marines division, took fourth in 2:24:14, and Jordan Smith was fifth in 2:24:41. The depth of the men's results was notable, with five runners inside 2:25 on a course known for its rolling middle miles.
In the women's race, Kaylee Slade of Arvada, Colorado, won in 2:44:34. Rebekka Kalenga was second in 2:46:36 and Julia Flower third in 2:49:01, with Bowman Shaughnessy fourth in 2:49:49 and Kate Llorente fifth in 2:51:01. The top five finished within roughly six and a half minutes, and Colorado supplied two of them in Slade and Llorente.
The weekend's earlier races produced close finishes of their own. At the Saturday MCM 8K, Andrew Brown won the masters men's category in 29:07 and Dana Hayden took the masters women's in 32:26. In the grandmasters women's division, Mary Davison and Reyna Talanian were separated by just four seconds, in 36:31 and 36:35 respectively.
The Marine Corps Marathon, billed as the People's Marathon, is known for its military connection and its mass-participation field. For King, a second consecutive victory in a faster time capped a weekend that belonged as much to the thousands behind him as to the front.