OCTOBER 29, 2024 – With a time of 2 hours, 25 minutes and 6 seconds, active duty Marine Corps Maj. Kyle King won the 49th Marine Corps Marathon Oct. 27.
He emotionally hugged his girlfriend, Hope Sweetnam, and then congratulated his fellow runners, second place finisher Air Force Capt. George Henry Crist, with a time of 2:26:20, and third place finisher Army Capt. Kyle Smith, with a time of 2:27:03.
The Marine Corps men’s team and women’s team also took home their respective Challenge Cups.
Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Lorna Mahlock, commander of Cyber National Mission Force, Washington motivated the marathoners as they prepared for the cannon blast to start the race.
“For all our racers out there, you epitomize tenacity, hard work and grit,” she said. “As you go forward and execute this race, do it with a happy heart. Go hard and when you’re done, go home because you’ve embodied what we see in the Marine Corps: honor, courage and commitment. Go home with a happy heart.”
The marathon course starts at the Pentagon, traverses Rosslyn, Key Bridge, Georgetown, Rock Creek Park, the National Mall, the 14th Street Bridge, Crystal City and ends at the Marine Corps War Memorial.
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jordan Tropf, who won the 2019 Marine Corps Marathon, started the first half strong, seated in second place at the 13-mile mark with an estimated 2:24:31 time but he said an injury he’s been battling started kicking in.
“First half went great,” said Tropf, who’s from Naval Base Guam. “We had a deep strong field this year. It was a lot of fun to race. It was amazing. I just ran my race. It was slower than I wanted to go; I wanted a sub 2:30 and finished at 2:32.”
Out of the 30 marathons he’s raced, he said MCM is his favorite. He won’t commit to coming back to run the 50th but he also says he can’t wait.
Marine Corps Maj. Kyle King
Around the half mark, King, Crist and Smith started taking the lead as a pack. They said they shared water, gels and joked a little to help make the miles go by while still focusing on the race.
“I was pretty nervous at the beginning of the race because the pace didn’t feel comfortable early on, going uphill,” said King, who’s from Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California. “I’ve never been a great uphill runner but in 2022, I was doing hill repeats at least once a week, getting ready for the race.”
He won MCM in 2022, the first time an active duty Marine had won the race in over 30 years. He said this year, he only had six weeks to train because he was in the field and had other mission requirements.
“I sacrificed the hill repeats for more speed work just to try and get that race pace more tolerable,” he said. “I definitely felt the lack of hill repeats on the hills out there.”
The second half of the race is fairly flat, with the exception of mile 20 going across into Crystal City.
“I’ll suffer through these hills and wait until it flattens out. I just try to be patient,” King said. “Jordan did look really good up there. He was leading the front pack for about eight miles. There were a few lead changes. Kyle Smith made a big move at Hains Point. We tracked him down on the back half of Hains Point.”
King said he hadn’t planned on taking the lead from the pack as early as mile 20.
“You usually want to make a big move and try to break people. I wasn’t sure I was fit enough to do that. I was afraid I was going to break myself and not them,” he said. “I wanted to wait until mile 23 to make a move. But mile 20 just kind of happened by accident. I just decided to go with it, hope for the best. Luckily, it worked out.”
King said having a reduced time to train turned up the intensity.
“Every workout I did, three days a week, was just so painful, it was terrible,” he said. “I just wanted it to be over. Those last couple miles out on the course today, I was like, okay, it was worth it. All that pain I put myself through, it was worth it.”
His girlfriend of three years, Sweetnam, wasn’t able to meet him at the finish line in 2022, but emotionally congratulated him after he took gold for the Men’s Division in the Armed Services Championship and won the overall 2024 MCM.
“She made me cry; Marines aren’t supposed to cry. Crying is okay Marines,” he said smiling. “She’s there for the majority of the struggle of getting into shape.”
Sweetnam’s dad served in the Canadian Army for almost 30 years. She said she’s not surprised he won because of the time and preparation he put into training.
“I’m so proud of him. This was a tactical race, not strictly for time. Who’s gritty enough and can get it done?” she said. “Before he started, I told him my motto, ‘Always leave room to surprise yourself.’ He definitely surprised himself but all summer, he’s been cementing the floor of how tough he is, training in the desert, training at 3,500 feet, going up into the mountains. I was always happy to be out there, supporting him.”
She said she loves seeing firsthand his kindness during a race.
“You can see the number of people he was hugging coming across the line, and people are just really happy for him. I think it just reflects on his kindness, his openness and his friendliness. He’s an absolute dogged competitor, but he’s also lighthearted and loving. He’s awesome.”
Air Force Capt. George Henry Crist
Capt. Crist, from Travis Air Force Base, California, took second in the Marine Corps Marathon, his first time running MCM.
He ran a 2:19 at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, in 2022. He ran 2:35 at the Boston Marathon in 2018 and 2:30 in 2019.
He said he loved the beautiful weather of this year’s race but prefers the cold and the rain or when it’s oppressively hot.
“I loved having the million and a half Marines out there on the course. It was really cool getting that support,” Crist said. “It was tough running on the National Mall with an Army guy on your left, a Marine on your right, a Navy guy in front of you and having people yelling and screaming. It gave me chills. I had to remember to keep my pace. It’s a more collaborative effort than it’s competitive.”
He said he enjoyed running in the pack, taking turns leading, sharing water and gels.
“We worked together instead of fighting people the whole way,” Crist said.
Crist didn’t know about the Blue Mile, the mile of remembrance for the fallen, until the pack started running through mile 12.
“There’s always a little bit of chatter. Everyone in the pack was a member of the Armed Forces so it was like a pin drop,” he said. “Nobody’s making jokes, moving around. It was this silent mile of everyone working hard. It’s definitely a different feel.”
He said because he was wearing an Air Force jersey, people would yell, “Go Air Force!”
“It’s tough to keep that under control because you’re getting fired up and want to move. Stay with your pace. You don’t want to get too excited,” he said.
Crist said they had a breakaway pack around mile 17, and then King made his move at mile 20.
“I didn’t have another gear to stay with him,” he said. “That hill at the end is really sneaky. It was nice to cross that finish line; it’s always nice when it’s done.”
He said his dad surprised him by being at the finish line to congratulate him.
“He had just visited me in California; he doesn’t get to see me race that often. It’s always nice when he does,” Crist said.
Army Capt. Kyle Smith
Smith, of Fort Carson, Colorado, trained with his wife, Mariah, as they pushed their two children, Ryker and Kylah, in the stroller to help him take third place at the MCM.
“She’s the reason I’m still able to keep driving toward my dream to hopefully one day make the Olympic Trials. I’ve been chasing this dream for longer than I can remember. It’s a main goal of mine,” Smith said. “When I’m going for a peak training block, I’m hitting around 100 or so miles a week. You’ve got to be able to maintain that work-life balance. The Army is not a traditional job.”
He said one week, you could run 100 miles and then next, you could run 20 because you spent five days in the field.
“It’s a very unique work environment, but sometimes it doesn’t support an elite running lifestyle,” Smith said. He said he has amazing supervisors, but the Army mission does come first, along with family, so fitting in elite-style training can be difficult.
He won the Charlotte Marathon in North Carolina in 2013, and the Mohawk Hudson River Marathon in New York in 2014. He said today was a rough day for him but a third place finish wasn’t a bad day.
“It was a rough day for me individually. I was hoping for a lot more. I’ve been dealing with a lot of adversity with training this segment. Top three finish on your worst day is still not a bad day,” he said.
This was his first Marine Corps Marathon.
“This course goes all over the city. You really get to see different parts, and the crowd pumps you up, maybe too much sometimes,” he said smiling.
Smith said he was proud to see his fellow service members take the top spots.
“It’s pretty unique. It just shows the strength of the competition today,” he said. “We had a solid pack for the first half and then things started getting gritty. People started racing, and that really made the race. Having one, two and three be in the service, that really drove me to get to the finish line.”
He said the Blue Mile and having more than 23,000 people run a marathon where there’s no prize money is truly remarkable.
“This race stands for more than just running a marathon. Mile 12 (the Blue Mile) highlights that. It was an iconic mile to go through, to know that these people sacrificed so much more than we have just running a marathon,” he said. “It’s not a world major but yet it competes on the level of a world major. It’s truly a remarkable experience in the nation’s capital.”
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By Shannon Collins, Armed Forces Sports