Jenny Simpson, arguably the best female miler in U.S. history, plans to make Sunday’s New York City Marathon her final professional race.
“I’m really focused on this race, like any other race,” Simpson told LetsRun.com on Thursday. “For me, personally, no amount of, oh, the enormity of my career should be expressed in this experience. I really don’t feel any pressure at all. I’m going to race in New York, I’m going to try to beat as many as many women as possible, and then three steps past the finish line, maybe I’ll start thinking, oh, I wonder what retirement will be like.
Simpson, 38, said his goal is to break a time of 2 hours and 30 minutes in Sunday’s marathon, where the winner’s time will likely be between 2:20 and 2:25.
Simpson last raced on the track at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Trials (placing 10th in the 1,500m), then switched to roads.
In his marathon debut, Simpson dropped out of the Paris Olympic Trials on February 3 before the 19th kilometer. She then ran the Boston Marathon on April 15 in 2:31:39, placing 18th.
During his track career, Simpson made his first Olympic team in 2008 in the 3000m steeplechase, then in 2012 and 2016 in the 1500m, winning a bronze medal in Rio. She is the only American to win a world title in the 1500m (2011) or an Olympic medal in the 1500m.
From 2007 to 2019, Simpson finished in the top three in one of the 1500 m, 5000 m or 3000 m steeplechase at the 13 annual USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.
Simpson also announced Thursday that she and her husband Jason plan to travel by RV to all 50 states in 2025 for a “running-focused exploration of America.”
“I look back at the younger version of myself and I think I could never have imagined it would last this long,” Simpson told LetsRun. “So what a privilege.”
New York Marathon peloton includes Olympic gold medalist and top Americans from Paris
Among the elite fields at the New York Marathon are Paris Olympic champion Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia.