Canada's Linkletter eyes 1st marathon win next month in Ottawa after 'surreal' Boston performance

Rory Linkletter will return home to Canada next month with a clear-cut goal for his Ottawa Marathon debut.

"I want to try to win a marathon," he told CBC Sports before placing sixth on Monday in Boston, where he took 59 seconds off his personal best, finishing in two hours seven minutes two seconds. "Ottawa was circled [for this spring] because this is a great opportunity to win a marathon on home soil."

Linkletter, who was born in Calgary and moved to Utah at age five with his mother after his parents divorced, has competed in the 10-kilometre race on Ottawa Race Weekend the past three years, posting a 28:40 PB last May.

Linkletter remains undecided about running the men's marathon at the Sept. 13-21 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, noting the Japanese heat would make posting a fast time difficult in preparation for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

However, his Boston performance probably moved Canada's second-fastest men's marathoner one step closer to a decision. Cam Levins of Black Creek, B.C., boasts a North American record of 2:05:36.

Linkletter mentioned last week the world championships "might make sense" if he had memorable experiences and ran fast in Boston and Ottawa.

WATCH | Linkletter noncommittal about World Athletics Championships:

Canadian marathoner isn't sure if he'll compete at the World Athletics Championships this September in Tokyo, saying racing at the last 3 global championships wears on an athlete year after year.

Linkletter, who wants to run 2:05 or 2:06 in the next year or two, is 71st in the world rankings quota for the world championships. Of the 100 athletes to be selected, 35 will have run the 2:06:30 men's entry standard, six will have qualified at a designated competition and 59 will be selected by world rankings position.

The 28-year-old is the top-ranked Canadian, with Athletics Canada allowed to take a maximum of three for the men's world marathon. Ben Preisner of Milton, Ont., is second (78th in rankings quota) and won't run a marathon before the qualifying window closes May 4 while Justin Kent is third and 82nd in rankings quota.

National record holder Cam Levins isn't in qualifying position and not believed to be running a marathon before May 4. He is scheduled to run 10K at the Vancouver Sun Run on April 27.

"Tokyo is an option," Linkletter said. "I just can't say for certain until after [Ottawa] what will make the most sense for me."

Should Linkletter finish the Ottawa Marathon healthy, his next race will be a half marathon (21.1 kilometres) at the Aug. 17 Edmonton Marathon, where he's "excited" to race in front of family.

On Monday, Linkletter led a pack of 10 runners at the halfway mark before being passed around 27 km.

He told Loren McGinnis of CBC Radio's Calgary Eyeopener he was "hurting and tired" around the 30 km mark but had enough fight to continue. Five km later, he recalled being in self-preservation mode and "running to survive" for a few minutes.

Once Linkletter reached the CITGO sign about 1.6 km to the finish line, he was confident of completing the race.

"I was so overcome with emotions when I turned on to Boylston [Street] and realized I was going to secure a top-10 finish and a lifetime best," said Linkletter, whose previous fastest clocking was 2:08:01 on Feb. 18, 2024 in Seville, Spain. "I passed three people in that last stretch and it was a remarkable way to close it out.

"It's surreal because this is such a hard thing to do … against this [high-level] field. You don't take it for granted."

Linkletter was 47th (2:13:09) in his Paris Olympic debut last summer, a race that humbled him, he told Canadian Running last fall, and fuelled his determination to become the best marathoner he can be by the 2028 Summer Games.

"I thought I had [the marathon] figured out in Seville, and then Paris knocked me on my ass," Linkletter told CBC Sports. "Seville, to me, was the marathon that proved what I knew deep down but hadn't proven at a high level [and that] was I was going to be good at this event, I was going to have potential to be on a world stage and that I could run fast times.

"We're just over a year from [that day] and I don't feel 2:08 is fast enough. It's the new floor of what I expect. I can see the path to take minutes off [my PB]."