For her next act, Des Linden is going big in ultra-distance trail running.
Less than a year after retiring from a long and successful career as a professional marathon runner, Linden will be toeing the starting line of the Marathon des Sables on April 3 in Morocco.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary six-day, 250-kilometer stage race across the Sahara Desert. Unlike most trail races, it requires runners to carry all of their food and clothing in a running pack as they run along sandy trails, dirt roads, and massive sand dunes during daily stages that typically vary in length from about 5 miles to 55 miles. Water is provided at aid stations and at each night’s temporary campsite.
Linden will be joined in the Marathon des Sables by good friend Magda Boulet, who won the race in 2018. She’s a fellow Olympian, successful road-to-trail convert, and the GU Energy Labs president, who has also been a welcoming ambassador for the sport.
“I ran it by a lot of people in the trail world and several people said, ‘Why on earth would you do that one? That’s crazy!’” said Linden, who lives in Michigan. “But I think it’s just so different that it was kind of a fun way to be excited about it and just try something completely out of the norm. You have to train for running with a pack, you have to figure out fueling. So there are just a lot of fun new elements to tackle. And then again, going back to Magda, having her experience from having won there, I think will be really fun to just be able to go through this process with her and learn a lot from her.”
A two-time U.S. Olympic marathoner (2012 and 2016) and the 2018 Boston Marathon champion, Linden, 42, has been getting more and more into trail running, although she admits she originally became intrigued with off-road running while doing training runs on trails when she was a student-athlete at Arizona State University in the early 2000s.
In recent years, Linden has taken trail running trips to New Zealand, Japan, and Switzerland with Boulet, ultrarunning champion Ruth Croft, and other friends.
The idea of running Marathon des Sables together with Boulet first came up last summer during a six-day hut-to-hut trail running trip through the Swiss Alps. Boulet was a 2008 U.S. Olympic marathoner who transitioned to trail running and has since won the Western States 100 and Leadville 100, and Marathon des Sables. Their friendship began at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in Boston, a race in which Boulet placed second and Linden finished 13th.
“She has the right attitude and mental fortitude that it takes to embrace challenges along the way, and there are going to be plenty,” Boulet said. “Watching her on some of the long adventures that we’ve done over the years, I’ve witnessed her put her head down and problem solve along the way, and not get frustrated. I think she has the mindset it takes for trail running and ultrarunning. She’s very calm in stressful situations, and I think that is going to be her superpower and a secret weapon that she brings to this phase of her running.”
Learning on the Fly
Although Linden is not new to trail or ultra disciplines—in fact, she holds the women’s world record for 50K of 2:59:54 (2021)—she admits she has plenty to learn in the trail and ultra world. She says she’ll rely on her experience of building her aerobic engine to running long distances, keep a chill attitude, and keep absorbing as much as possible along the way.
As part of her transition to the trail and ultrarunning, Linden has also signed on as a member of the GU Athlete Team and will be supported at the Marathon des Sables with energy and hydration products from the GU Performance Lab. Linden admits she’ll rely on the input and advice of Boulet and Roxane Gonzales Vogel, PhD., GU’s director research and education, about fueling in ultra-distance races.
Linden says she’s intrigued about other big trail and ultrarunning races, including the Western States 100 in California and the 90K Comrades Marathon in South Africa. She was in Chamonix, France, in 2022 to run trails and watch some of the races of the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) weeklong festival of trail running, and last summer paced Joe McConaughy for a 16-mile section of Western States.
She said she was glued to the livestream of last summer’s UTMB from her home in Michigan and was excited to see Croft come out victoriously.
“It definitely seems like trail running is really growing,” she said. “You see that brands are putting more effort towards trail, and the performances are getting better. If you look at what Jim Wamsley has done, what Courtney Dauwalter has done, and after watching Ruth Croft last year at UTMB, I mean, people are running so incredibly well that you just want to tune in and watch. It’s just thrilling racing. It’s probably a lot of factors working together, but it does seem like it’s only trending up right now.”
Trail and Ultra are ‘Having a Moment’
Prior to the Marathon des Sables, Linden will be racing the Black Canyon Ultras 50K race on February 15 north of Phoenix, Arizona. A day before that race, 2020 Olympic marathon bronze medalist Molly Seidel will be running the Black Canyon 100K, a race with golden ticket entry opportunities for this year’s Western States 100. Seidel just won the Bandera 50K outright on January 11 in record-setting fashion.
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More than ever before, Boulet believes trail and ultrarunning are having a moment. She knows there is still work to be done to make the sport more inclusive and accessible, but she thinks runners like Linden and Seidel will help draw new levels of interest and excitement.
“In my mind, in 2027 it could be Desi, Molly, and Alexi Pappas on the starting line at Western States. How awesome would that be?” Boulet said. “It’s exciting to see people stretch their heads as runners and not consider themselves as just road runners. I know, when I trained for marathons, 80 percent of my running was on trails. So skills are there, it’s just, you know, making people believe that they can transfer the skills to trails.”
Linden said she will be meeting with the Brooks footwear and apparel teams in Seattle soon to determine what she’ll wear during the Marathon des Sables. She’ll also be visiting the GU headquarters in March and will do some final training on hills and sand with Boulet in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“Trail running is definitely something I’ve always been interested in,” Linden said. “For me, I think it’s just kind of getting out of the marathon bubble for a bit and exploring new things. And then within that, dialing in like what do I actually like and ‘where do I want to spend my time and effort?’ It’s pretty eye-opening to get into the different regions of the world and see how technical it can be and how challenging it can be. It’s really its own unique sport. I don’t know if it’ll be a smooth transition or if I’ll have any success, but I think I certainly have fitness, so we’ll see what we can do with it. I’m excited about it.”
About the Author
UltraSignup Director of Media Brian Metzler has wear-tested more than 2,000 running shoes and is the author of “Kicksology: The Hype, Science, Culture and Cool of Running Shoes” (2019) and “Trail Running Illustrated” (2021). He has raced just about every distance from 100 meters to 100 miles, but he’s most eager to share stories about his experiences riding trains to trail runs in Chamonix.
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