Alberto Salazar is an American former track coach and long-distance runner. Born in Cuba, Salazar immigrated to the United States as a child with his family, living in Connecticut and then in Wayland, Massachusetts, where Salazar competed in track and field in high school. Salazar won the New York City Marathon three times in the early 1980s, and won the 1982 Boston Marathon in a race known as the "Duel in the Sun". He set American track records for 5,000 m and 10,000 m in 1982. Salazar was later the head coach of the Nike Oregon Project. He won the IAAF Coaching Achievement Award in 2013.
Frank Charles Shorter is an American former long-distance runner who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. His Olympic success, along with the achievements of other American runners, is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States during the 1970s.
William Henry Rodgers is an American runner, Olympian, and former record holder in the marathon. Rodgers is best known for his four victories in both the Boston Marathon, including three straight from 1978 to 1980, and 4 straight wins in the New York City Marathon, between 1976 and 1979.
Dathan James Ritzenhein is a retired American long-distance runner, and current head coach of the On Athletics Club (OAC). He held the American record in the 5,000 metres (12:56.27) from 2009 to 2010, until it was broken by Bernard Lagat. He is a three-time national cross country champion with wins at the USA Cross Country Championships in 2005, 2008 and 2010. Formerly a Nike athlete for the majority of his professional career, Dathan joined the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project team in 2017. In early May 2020, he announced his retirement from competition. He signed with the Swiss shoe brand On shortly thereafter in June 2020 and currently acts as the coach for the OAC in Boulder, Colorado.
Craig Steven Virgin is an American distance runner. He was born in Belleville, Illinois, and grew up near Lebanon, Illinois. While in high school, Virgin won 5 state championships as well as setting the national outdoor high school 2-mile record of 8:40.9. Additionally, Virgin held the Illinois Boys Cross Country all-time state championship record for 47 years, running a 13:50.6 in 1972, a record that stood until November 9, 2019, when Josh Methner of John Hersey High School ran a 13:49.86. Virgin was Track and Field News "High School Athlete of the Year" in 1973.
Jeff Galloway is an American Olympian and the author of Galloway's Book on Running.
Ryan Hall is a retired American long-distance runner who holds the U.S. record in the half marathon. With his half marathon record time (59:43), he became the first U.S. runner to break the one-hour barrier in the event. He is also the only American to run a sub-2:05 marathon. However, this time is not eligible to be a record due to the course being point-to-point and a net-downhill course. Hall won the marathon at the 2008 United States Olympic trials and placed tenth in the Olympic marathon in Beijing.
George L. Young was an American track athlete and college coach. He won a bronze medal at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the 3000 meter steeplechase and held several American records in events ranging from the two mile to the 5000 meter race. He broke two world records, in the indoor two and three mile events.
Benji Durden is a Boulder, Colorado based runner and former running coach who came to prominence as a distance runner in the early 1980s, at the height of the American running boom. Durden was a member of the 1980 Summer Olympics United States marathon team, placing second against what to that point was perhaps the deepest field of American marathoners ever assembled. With a personal record of 2:09:57, Durden recorded 25 sub-2:20 marathons in less than a decade. He ranked among the top ten US marathoners six straight years, reaching seventh in the world in 1982.
Jon Peter Anderson, is a lifelong Eugene, Oregon resident. He was a publisher and runner best known for winning the 1973 Boston Marathon. Anderson was a competitive long-distance runner from 1966 to 1984. He represented the United States as a member of the 1972 US Olympic track and field team.
Kate Tenforde is an American long-distance runner from Milton, Massachusetts. She represented the United States in the 2004 Summer Olympics, competing in the 10,000 metres.
Jack Strangl Bacheler is an American former long-distance runner and two-time U.S. Olympian. Born in Washington, District of Columbia, Bacheler was a founding member of the Florida Track Club at Gainesville, Florida in the late 1960s, and personally designed the club's distinctive "orange" logo. Standing 6 feet 7 inches, yet weighing only 165 pounds, he towered over most of his competitors. Now living in Clayton, North Carolina, he is married to Patricia Bacheler. Bacheler has two children, daughter Teresa (Teri), and son Matthew (Matt).
Lisa Larsen Rainsberger, previously known as Lisa Larsen Weidenbach, is a distance runner. She is a member of the University of Michigan Track and Field and Road Runners of America Halls of Fame. Her marathon times were among the top ten in the US in 1984 and 1987–1994. As of 2008, she was listed four times in the top 100 all-time US women's marathon performances, with a best time of 2:28:15.
Gary Tuttle is an American long distance runner and local politician from Ventura, California. Over a lengthy career, he won two NCAA Men's Outdoor Track and Field Championships, set three American records, ran for the USA team at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, won the Bay to Breakers race in 1974 and placed second in the Boston Marathon in 1985.
Garry Brian Bjorklund is an American middle- and long-distance runner. He represented the United States in the 1976 Summer Olympics in the 10,000 meters. As a high schooler, he set a Minnesota state record for the mile run which lasted 39 years. At the University of Minnesota, he won the 1971 national championship in the six-mile run, and won numerous conference championships in various disciplines. Following his 1976 Summer Olympics appearance, Bjorklund became a marathon runner, and set a national age group record in 1980.
Kathy Butler is a long-distance runner who competes in the 10,000 metres and marathon, as well as cross country running and road running. Born in Scotland, she has competed internationally for both Great Britain and Canada.
Keith Alan "KB" Brantly is an American former professional long-distance runner who contended in the men's marathon at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia. Brantly finished twenty-eighth of one hundred and eleven runners who completed the race, in a time of 2:18:17. He is recognized for his extensive distance-running career that encompasses nearly three decades at distances that range from one mile to a marathon.
Joe Vigil is an American track and field coach who specializes in long-distance running. From 1965 to 1993 he coached and taught at Adams State University, his alma mater, before shifting his focus to coaching elite athletes.
Janice Ettle is an American middle-distance and long-distance runner, winner of major marathons and top finisher in dozens of road races, as well as a competitor at the 1987 World Marathon Cup and fourth-place finisher at the Havana, Cuba, 1991 Pan American Games women's marathon. Ettle was a five-time competitor at the US Olympic Marathon Trials.
Nicole Aish is a long distance runner who is a U.S. National Championship Marathon winner and a bronze medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games in the 5,000 metres.
United States 