What To Watch This Weekend: U.S. Half Marathon Championships, Last Chance Qualifier At BU + More

By Alex Predhome

Hope you are enjoying some warm(er) weather and a serotonin boost, trackheads!  On the track, athletes are either in the thick of championship season or are making last minute preparations for the World Indoor Championships.  Meanwhile, on the roads, things are merely beginning to heat up as we approach the next USATF Road Championship and the first World Marathon Major of the year. 

This weekend, we will see the SEC Championships, Last Chance National Qualifier at BU, World Indoor Tour Gold Madrid, the USATF Half Marathon championships, and the Tokyo Marathon. 

How To Watch Track And Field This Weekend

If you have FloTrack, YouTube, and a cable subscription log-in, you can watch most of these. Thankfully, we don’t have too many odd starting times this weekend. Even better, we have a USATF championship where you don’t have to only rely on Twitter for the updates as they have a livestream! Also, all of these meets will have live results.

SEC Indoor Championships

The SEC Indoor Championships historically serves as a preview of what we can expect to see at the NCAA Indoor Championship on March 14-15, especially in the sprinting events. 

The defending women’s team champion (at both the conference and national level), Arkansas, aims to maintain its reputation as “400m U.” Despite losing three All-Americans in the event, they’re led by Penn grad transfer Isabella Whittaker, who has a collegiate #2 time of 50.87, alongside teammates Sanaria Butler and Joanne Reid, who have clocked season bests of 51.95 (#7 in the NCAA) and 52.01 (#8 in the NCAA), respectively. In the 60m dash, let’s keep an eye out for Tima Godbless and defending national champion Brianna Lyston, who hold the top two times in the country with 7.08 and 7.13, respectively. 

On the men’s side, the Auburn sprint duo of Kayinsola Ajayi and Makanakaishe Charamba will be hard to beat. Ajayi will aim for his second title in the men's 60m, and comes into this meet with a 6.51 60m SB—the leading collegiate mark for 2025. Charamba comes into this meet with a 20.16 for 200m, which sits as the eighth-fastest indoor performance in world history and a Zimbabwean national record. Charamba will be challenged by Carli Makarawu of Kentucky, who ran 20.31 at the Tiger Paw Invitational. 

Handy links: Live Results | Meet Schedule

How To Watch: This meet will be streamed on the SEC Network+ (subscription required), which is available online at espn.com/watch or the ESPN app. It will be contested from Feb 27-Mar 1.

On Friday, you can access the Day 2 Heptathlon & Field Events stream here on Friday starting at 12:00 PM ET and the Day 2 track events stream here starting at 5:00 PM ET. On Saturday, you can access the field events stream here on Saturday, starting at 3:00 PM ET, and the track events stream here starting at 3:00 PM ET. 

Last Chance National Qualifier At BU

Haven’t gotten enough of fast running at BU? You’re in luck! There’s one more meet on Sunday and this one is dedicated to last chance attempts at World Athletics standards, collegiate national qualifying rankings, high school national standards, and Master’s world rankings.

On the men’s side, the 5000m features a star-studded field that includes Olympians Adriaan Wildschutt, Nico Young, and Ky Robinson, in addition to U.S. indoor 3000m runner-up Dylan Jacobs. On the women’s side, keep an eye on the stacked field in the mile, which includes a slew of Olympians like Susan Ejore-Sanders, Whittni Morgan, Sintayehu Vissa, and Maia Ramsden as well as high school junior and NXN national champion Addy Ritzenhein. 

Handy links: Live Results | Meet Schedule

How To Watch: This meet will be streamed on FloTrack. You can access the stream here, which will start at 11:45 AM ET on Sunday. 

World Indoor Tour Gold Madrid

If you’re eager to catch some last-minute pro matchups before the sun sets on the 2025 indoor season, this meet is your chance. The final stop on the World Indoor Tour is set for Madrid on Friday, Feb. 28. The World Indoor Tour is a series of scored indoor meets and the athlete with the most points in each scoring discipline at the end of the tour will be awarded a $10,000 bonus, an Indoor Tour title, and a wild card entry for the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing on March 21-23.

There will be a few good rivalries and matchups in this meet, especially in the field events. 2024 World Indoor Champion Sarah Mitton and two-time World Champion Chase Jackson will face off in the shot put. In the pole vault, let’s keep an eye out for a clash between World Champion Molly Caudery and World bronze medalist Tina Sutej. In the 60m hurdles, Dylan Beard will face off against French Olympian Wilhem Belocian. Beard still holds the world #2 time in this event this year, and it will be interesting to see if he can bounce back from a disappointing sixth-place finish at the USATF Indoor Championships last weekend. 

The triple jump is not in the scoring for Tour purposes, but this meet will also feature some of the best jumpers in the world going head-to-head. The indoor world record holder and 2024 world indoor champion Hugues Fabrice Zango will face off against 2022 world indoor gold medallist Lazaro Martinez and 2024 World Indoor runner-up Yasser Triki. 

Handy links: Live Results Tab on this site | Entry List | Meet Schedule

How To Watch: You can access Friday’s livestream on the World Athletics Inside Track page and also on FloTrack, both starting at 1:30 PM ET.

USATF Half Marathon Championships 

On the roads, first up is the USATF Half Marathon Championships, set to take place on Sunday, March 2. And unlike some of the other more esoteric national road running championships, you don’t have to suss out results from scrolling Twitter. This year, the championships are occurring at the Publix Atlanta Half Marathon, who’s thoughtfully arranged for a free YouTube stream of the race. Results here will determine who will represent Team USA in the half marathon for this year’s World Athletics Road Running Championships, set to take place in San Diego, CA, in September. The men will start at 7:15 AM ET and the women will start three minutes later. Prize money will be paid ten deep for both men and women: 1st - $20,000, 2nd - 12,000, 3rd -  7,500, 4th -  5,000, 5th -  3,000, 6th -  2,500, 7th - 2,000, 8th -  1,500, 9th -  1,000, 10th -  500. 

It should shape up to be a fast one, given the depth of the fields. 

The men’s side will see four Olympians up front: marathoners Leonard Korir and Clayton Young, steeplechaser-turned-road-warrior Hillary Bor, and half marathon quasi-newbie Joe Klecker. Six other men in the field also have PBs under 61 minutes: On’s Teshome Mekonen (1:00:02), Under Armour’s Biya Simbassa (1:00:37), Zap Endurance’s Andrew Colley (1:00:47), Puma Elite’s Alex Maier (1:00:51), Tinman Elite’s Reed Fischer (1:00:47), and ZAP Endurance’s Ryan Ford (1:00:59). 

The women’s side is headlined by American record holder Weini Kelati, who’s coming off of her recent resetting over her own record to 1:06:09, which she clocked at this year’s Houston Half Marathon. Let’s also keep an eye on the second-fastest American woman ever in this event, Sara Hall, as well as 2024 marathon Olympian Dakotah Popehn and Trials fourth-placer Jessica McClain. The field here also has 15 other women who’ve dipped under the 1:10 barrier.

Handy links: Results Page

How To Watch: You can access the free livestream here on YouTube on Sunday, March 2nd, starting at 6:30 AM EST. 

Tokyo Marathon

We finally have our long-awaited first World Marathon Major on the calendar: the 2025 Tokyo Marathon. 

On the men’s side, defending champion Benson Kipruto is back after setting the course record of 2:02:16 at last year’s race. He’ll be challenged by Olympic 10,000m champion Joshua Chepetegei, who will finally return to the marathon distance after his debut back in Valencia in 2023. 

On the women’s side, we also have the defending 2024 champion, Sutume Asefa Kebede, returning. She will be challenged by Brigid Kosgei, who won in 2021 and who previously held the women’s world record with her PB of 2:14:04. 2024 Berlin Marathon champion Tigist Ketema will also be in the mix as well. 

Handy links: Results Page

How To Watch: You can view the livestream here on YouTube and here on FloTrack on Saturday, March 1 at 7:00pm EST.

One Good Song For Your Weekend 

A lot of people are experiencing some long-awaited warm weather, coupled with the sun staying out longer. This could very well be what people call “false spring,” and we are probably not out of the woods yet. That said, I think it’s totally fine to enjoy yourself in the spring weather while you can. Hopefully, this tune helps with that. 

The Best of CITIUS MAG This Week: Josh Hoey on the CITIUS MAG Podcast | Harvard Coach Alex Gibby on the CITIUS MAG Podcast | U.S. Indoor Championships Recap | More Athletes Announces As Jamaican Grand Slam Track Challengers | Nikki Hiltz Re-Signs With Lululemon | How To Improve Championship Racing | The Lap Count Newsletter: Next Stop Nanjing

Keep up with all things track and field by following us across Instagram, X, Bluesky, Threads, and YouTube. Catch the latest episodes of the CITIUS MAG Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For more, subscribe to The Lap Count and CITIUS MAG Newsletter for the top running news delivered straight to your inbox.