Laura Thweatt

Laura Thweatt with Hellen Obiri and Hellen's daughter, Tania, at the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon.

This blog post is by Emilia Benton, a freelance health and wellness journalist based in Denver.

Laura Thweatt is no stranger to the TCS New York City Marathon. A former professional marathoner, she debuted in the distance at the 2015 race, coming in seventh place, and returned to compete again in 2021, when she finished eighth.

Laura announced her retirement from professional running late last year. She also shared that she wasn't sure what she wanted her next chapter to look like.

"It had been kind of a tough two to three years and I was trying to decide how seriously I wanted to continue competing," Laura said. "I felt pretty lost."

Next Move After Pro Running

She'd had a great career, including a fifth-place finish at the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Marathon in Atlanta, and a lifetime best of 2:25:38 at the 2017 London Marathon. But she’d also been plagued by injuries, and her longtime contract with her apparel sponsor had ended.

She applied to some running-adjacent positions in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives, and also kept an ear open to coaching positions, as she had more than a decade of coaching experience. After sharing an Instagram post about navigating this transition, she received a call from fellow retired pro marathoner Dathan Ritzenhein, who now serves as the head coach of the Boulder-based On Athletics Club. The two discussed having Laura sign on as a new assistant coach working with road-racing athletes, including three-time Olympic medalist and 2023 TCS New York City Marathon champion Hellen Obiri.

"He shared how they wanted to build out the team with more athletes on that side and needed someone to be the boots on the ground for it. I knew I was interested and wanted to do that with how passionate I had always been about coaching," she said.

Working with Some of the World’s Best

Laura stepped into her new role in March, with Hellen and 2020 U.S Olympian Joe Klecker being the first athletes she led through a complete marathon build. For Hellen, it would be her fourth time lining up in Staten Island, and for Joe, it would not only be his first time there, but also his first go at 26.2 miles.

Hellen is one of the best marathoners currently competing, having now won the Boston and New York City Marathons twice each. She’s also a two-time Olympic silver medalist in the 5,000 meters and won bronze in the marathon at the 2024 Paris Games.

For Laura, the prospect of coaching Hellen was initially daunting. "I was pretty intimidated when I came in because I didn't know what I had to offer someone like Hellen, what she could need from me, and how I could bridge that gap with my own experience and career and everything I had learned with where she is in hers," Laura said.

"It was the same with Joe,” she added. “These are some of the best athletes in the world and I knew I just wanted to work at building relationships where they felt like they could trust me, and they had this safe space to communicate with me so that I could help them navigate not only the physical piece of what they do in the training, but also the psychological piece and the mental side of the sport."

The emotional support piece ended up being a core component of both Hellen and Joe's preparation, with Laura noting how being able to relate to Hellen as a peer and a female athlete helped to foster their relationship.

"I hardly worked with any female coaches throughout my entire career, so it's really cool for me to get this opportunity to be a female coach at this elite level and just get to know Hellen as a person—she's funny, she has a great attitude, she's easy to work with, and she just enjoys the process. She still has so much passion spanning a 20-plus-year career," Laura said. "She's definitely becoming a friend and just another woman in the sport that I'm very inspired and empowered by."

A Special Day in NYC

Hellen won the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon in event-record time.

Hellen ended up winning the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon in 2:19:51, shattering the previous course record (2:22:31), which had been held by Margaret Okayo since 2003, unleashing a newfound level of confidence, according to Laura.

"She told me that during the race, right before she decided to make her move at the end, she was just like 'I felt so strong, and I knew that I had had one of my best builds yet, and I just was in a different place than I had been in a long time, and I had this confidence again, that like I was the best and I could win,'" Laura said.

The mental support piece looked similar, yet different, for Joe. The son of 1992 U.S. Olympic marathoner Janis Klecker and former American 50-mile record holder Barney Klecker, he was facing high expectations in his first marathon.

Joe ran 2:10:37 on November 2, finishing as the third American man and 10th overall.

Joe Klecker also had a great race on November 2, finishing 10th overall.

"As far as a debut goes for someone like Joe, who I think, at times, just carries the weight of the world, as far as what's expected of him, we couldn't have asked for a better day. But my biggest goal for him was that I just wanted him to have a positive experience, learn the distance and be excited coming off of it, regardless of the result."

During Joe's build, Laura accompanied him on a summer trip to New York in which she biked alongside him while he ran 15 miles of the course from Brooklyn to Queens and into Manhattan and the Bronx.

"I felt like I got to really use the experience I had from the two times I raced New York to talk him through that course preview and the things I wanted him to really be thinking about as we were running over the course, and I think, ultimately, on race day, that did really help him because he was able to feel it and really see it firsthand," Laura said.

As she saw Hellen and Joe cross the finish line in Central Park, Laura knew she’d made the right decision in stepping into her new role.

"I got to be at the finish line with Dathan and I was crying both when Hellen came across and also when Joe finished. It's four months where you and the athletes pour everything into this singular focus, but it's still a marathon and so much can happen out of your control over 26 miles. So when you get those perfect days where everything comes together and they get to show off all that work and have the end results that they had, it's so emotional."

Onward as a Coach

Laura reflected on how her new role has allowed her to develop a new relationship with her own running.

"I'm running 15 to 20 miles a week, which is basically just enough where I can run some of the easy days with the athletes and warm up with them before workouts," she said. "It's allowed me to step back and put it down fully, and now I get to do it because I still love it."

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Emilia Benton is a freelance health and wellness journalist based in Denver, Colorado. Her work has appeared in Runner's World, Outside RUN, and SELF, among other publications. She is also a 14-time marathoner, USATF Level 1-certified run coach and an avid traveler.