Half, or 12, of her marathons have been Boston, including her first in 2007 and what she says will be her last on Monday. It’s a perfectly practical decision, ending her marathon career where it began and blossomed.
In what read as a full-page thank you note to the city and the race in Monday’s Globe, Linden announced that she was retiring from competitive marathoning. She plans to compete in trail running and ultra-marathons, but this phase of her career is complete.
“People say you should go out on top, and that’s what I’m doing — because choosing to race my final professional marathon in Boston is indeed going out on top," she wrote. “I hope you enjoy one last show. Thanks for all the years and all the cheers.”
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Linden, who finished second by just two seconds in 2011 and whose resilience finally paid off seven years later, left the sentimental feelings on the printed page on Monday.
There was not much time for nostalgia when there was one more race to run.
“I was all in on racing,” she said after finishing 17th overall and fifth among American women with a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes, 19 seconds. “In fact, if I tried to do anything different I probably would have just been a puddle of tears.
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“The days leading in were emotional. I tend to just suffer alone. I spent a lot of time in my room with those emotions and tears.”
Linden is from the other side of the country, more old Pac-10 than old Big East, but she loves this place and its storied race like a local who grew up dreaming of roaring down Boylston Street someday. And because she does, because she gets it, and because her success did not come easily, Boston loves her right back.
Linden is one of those rare athletes who has built a connection with this city through an admirable and abundant mix of competitiveness and character, similar in some ways to Meb Keflezighi on the men’s side.
She has always shown love to the city (one of her dogs is named Boston) and she has shown up, whether it was making her debut here in a nor’easter in 2007, coming up seconds short of victory in ’11, or running away from the field in ’18 in that miserable near-monsoon.
Linden was always up for going stride-for-stride with Mother Nature, a trait appreciated in a region where people spend a good part of the year enduring uncooperative conditions.
Linden fell for Boston during her marathon debut in ’07, when she finished 18th, running in the shadow of established Americans Deena Kastor, Shalane Flanagan, and Kara Goucher. “It was an overwhelmingly positive experience,” Linden recalled.
The 2011 race brought that endearing near-miss, when she led briefly with 250 meters to go before Kenya’s Caroline Kilel outsprinted her to the finish.
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Boston does love a redemption story or a good tale of resilience, and Linden’s legend was secured with her runaway victory — she prevailed by more than four minutes — in the driving rain in 2018, making her the first American to win the women’s open race since 1985.
“This is storybook stuff,” she said then. “I got into the sport because of the Boston Marathon. I came out here in 2007 and they treated a nobody like I belonged. To win on this course and this race with that support is awesome.”
Linden was at her best in 2018 in the spot where so many runners’ hopes have stalled over the years. She made up 25 seconds on the leaders on Heartbreak Hill before taking the lead at Mile 21 in front of Boston College.
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She acknowledged Monday that the memory of that career-changing pivot point in her ’18 victory crossed her mind during this year’s race, but not for sentimental reasons, of course.
“I thought about that a little bit,” she said. “There are little points along the way [you remember], I think that’s more from a strategic perspective, where it’s like, ‘This is a good place to regroup,’ or ‘I can lean into this hill.’ ”
When Linden crossed the finish line, a little less than nine minutes after women’s winner Sharon Lokedi’s course-record time of 2:17:22, she embraced her husband Ryan, then was greeted by American runners that included Jess McClain, Annie Frisbie, and Emma Bates, who bowed down in a we’re-not-worthy salute.
“[That was] really cool,” said Linden. “I had those folks in front of me that paved the way. I looked up to them and they always made me feel like I belonged, made me feel like my dreams were valid, helped me along the way. So I always tried to do that for other folks in the sport, as well.”
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It was a fitting final scene for the former champ and honorary Bostonian for life. And for once, one of Linden’s core memories here was accompanied by decent weather.
Chad Finn can be reached at chad.finn@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeChadFinn.
