For the last several years, Erika Kemp felt like she was waiting for a breakthrough race. Though she’s run personal bests every year since graduating from North Carolina State University, she craved a career-defining performance—one that would confirm her place as one of the best professional distance runners in the country.
On Sunday, January 19—one week before her 30th birthday—that day came at the 2025 Houston Marathon. Running against high winds and 30-degree temperatures, Kemp finished second overall in 2:22:56—11:01 faster than her previous personal best from 2023. Among the best marathoners in history, she is now No. 12 on the U.S. all-time list.
Two days later, on a phone call from her home in Providence, Rhode Island, Kemp explained to Runner’s World why she felt validated after Houston. “It’s one thing to believe in yourself and have your coaches and sponsors and everyone be on your side saying, ‘You’re going to be great,’ but you need the result to materialize at some point. It can’t all just be vibes and positive self talk,” Kemp said. “To put it all together in real life was huge.”
Now, Kemp feels like she’s finally having her moment in an event that’s tested her for the last two years. “I feel like I had my seat at the table, but now I’m very confident, like here is my metal name card. This is my seat.”
Trial(s) and error
In some ways, Kemp got here by starting anew—both in her training and how she approaches the process. Originally from Mount Holly, New Jersey, Kemp made her marathon debut at the 2023 Boston Marathon, shortly after she signed with a new sponsor and joined a new training group. In early 2023, she chose not to re-sign with the Boston Athletic Association’s pro team, where she’d run personal bests of 15:10 in the 5,000 meters and 31:35 in the 10,000 meters. Instead, Kemp inked a new sponsorship deal with Brooks and moved from Boston to Providence, where she started training with the Rhode Island Track Club and coach Kurt Benninger.
Though her first 26.2 was solid, Kemp knew she had more to give. A week heading into the 2023 Boston Marathon, Kemp got food poisoning. Still fatigued from the illness, she managed to finish 27th in 2:33:57. “I was super proud of that performance on the day, but it’s definitely been hanging over me for the last two years because on paper, I just didn’t feel like it was reflective of the athlete that I am,” Kemp said.
Kemp qualified for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February by running a then-PR of 1:10:14 at the 2023 Houston Half Marathon, and her Boston performance gave her valuable experience racing the distance. But she hit another setback at the Trials.
Kemp said she still doesn’t know exactly what went wrong, but her body felt off from the start of the race in Orlando, Florida. With an Olympic team on the line, she tried to push through, hoping she’d get through a brief rough patch, but instead she felt worse. She dropped out just after mile 12. “It’s not super fun to stop and be on the sidelines sobbing in front of thousands of people in your buns, but it happens. It’s part of the job,” Kemp said.
When she processed what happened days later, Kemp reflected on the 10 weeks of training leading up to the Trials. Looking back on the mileage and hard sessions, she started to feel better knowing she had a near-perfect buildup with one bad day. “Having that hard moment, I had to look in the mirror and realize what we’re doing is fine, like you don’t need to panic, you don’t need to change everything,” Kemp said. “Just keep down the same path and you’ll see the results.”
Course corrections
Soon after the Trials, Kemp and Benninger put Houston on the calendar as her next marathon. With almost a year to prepare, they felt she’d have plenty of time to recover and get excited about the distance again. Last spring and summer, she went back to the track for a change of pace. In June, she finished eighth in the 10,000 meters at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, a race that felt like redemption after dropping out of the Trials in 2021. By the time Kemp returned to marathon training in the fall, she felt refreshed.
She also responded well to Benninger’s mindful approach. Kemp describes herself as a runner based in the present moment, rarely thinking beyond the rep she’s in. By contrast, Benninger, who is also Molly Huddle’s husband, is focused on the long-term plan. This vision often comes into play during hard workouts, many of which Kemp does solo while others in the group focus on other distances.
If Kemp feels really strong, she’ll push the pace in an effort to get the most out of herself in each session. But Benninger will remind her to slow down and save her best effort for the race. “[Kurt] was right. I got to race day feeling like I had a full tank. There wasn’t a single workout where I left it all out there,” Kemp said. “At the end of those big sessions, we wanted to feel like I could go further and run faster.”
This time, they also made mileage adjustments to prioritize Kemp’s health. After she tweaked her back around Halloween and couldn’t run for four days, they decided on a slower build up for Houston. Instead of forcing the higher mileage early on, they focused on nailing the workouts. She didn’t hit 70 miles per week until early December. Later that month, she was running 80-82 miles consistently.
On race day, Kemp was paced by her friend, Jonas Hampton. The lead group of elite women remained together until about halfway, when Ethiopian runners Kumeshi Sichala, Tsige Haileslase, and Anna Dibaba Kenene started picking up the pace before returning to the group and back up again. Instead of yo-yoing, Kemp and Hampton locked into a steady 5:27-mile pace. The consistency paid off as competitors fell back one-by-one. With 5K remaining, Kemp was in second place, but she wasn’t keeping track of her projected time. When she saw the clock on the homestretch read 2:22, a minute faster than her goal time, Kemp felt relief.
Kemp already topped the list as the fastest American-born Black woman after running 2:33 in Boston, but her race in Houston made that record much tougher to beat. “When you have performances like that, it just opens up to a much bigger audience,” Kemp said.
Looking ahead, Kemp wants to focus on the roads this year. Though she is one of only five Americans with the world championships standard in the marathon, she isn’t in the top three based on world ranking. If she’s selected by USA Track and Field, Kemp would gladly accept a spot on the U.S. team headed to Tokyo this summer. If not, Kemp wants to see how she’d fare at another World Marathon Major, especially now that she’s proven she can run with the front of the pack.
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
