For the first time in a year, Conner Mantz — the BYU grad and America’s top marathoner for several years — will enter a marathon Sunday morning when he toes the line for the New York City Marathon.

The last time he ran a marathon, he produced a still-standing American record of 2:04:43 to finish fourth overall in the Chicago Marathon. Since then, he has been slowed by two sacral stress fractures as well as related stress reactions in the pelvis.

“I think he’s in a good place,” says Mantz’s coach, Ed Eyestone. “As good as when he set the American record in Chicago last year. The big difference is that he had a number of races leading up to Chicago; he hasn’t had as many check-point races this time. But he’ll enter New York with fresh legs.”

Eyestone’s confidence was boosted by the performance of Mantz’s training partner, Clayton Young, in the Chicago Marathon two weeks ago, in which he recorded the second-fastest time ever by an American, 2:05:23, while finishing seventh overall, first among Americans.

“Conner has been beating Clayton in workouts, and I think Clayton’s performance (in Chicago) has to give (Conner) confidence,” says Eyestone.

Young himself had been dealing with a hamstring injury, and until two weeks before the race, he and Eyestone were uncertain if he would run in Chicago. Eyestone put Young through a series of increasingly intense workouts to determine if he was ready to race.

“Each time, we would say, OK, if you get through this, we don’t have to pull the plug (on the race),” says Eyestone. “We said that over and over before each workout.”

Mantz (and Young, as well) had been on a roll before the injury — seventh in Chicago in 2022, 11th in Boston in 2023, sixth in Chicago in 2023, first in the U.S. Olympics trials in 2024, eighth in the Olympic Games in 2024, sixth in New York in 2024, fourth in Boston in 2024 and fourth again in Chicago in 2025. He was the top American in all of those races except Boston in 2023, and of course he made headlines by crushing the American record in the last race.

Mantz’s long absence has brought questions. LetsRun.com posted this headline two days ago: “Is Conner Mantz Still America’s Top Marathoner?”

In the past year, other Americans have raised their games. Zouhair Talbi, a Moroccan-born runner and naturalized U.S. citizen, and Charles Hicks both surpassed Mantz’s American record with wind-aided times of 2:03:45 and 2:04:35, respectively, in Boston last spring, but they can’t count as records because Boston is a point-to-point course.

“I really like the way Conner’s training build has gone,” says Eyestone. “He was injured for a long time, but he’s back now and has had a good 20 weeks of hard training.”

Mantz will be trying to secure his first podium finish in a major marathon (he was one place short in his last two marathons). He will face Talbi in New York, as well as the usual strong runners from Kenya and Ethiopia.

Aiden Troutner, a former teammate of Mantz and Young at BYU, also will enter the race in New York. He won the U.S. 10K road championships earlier this month.

Clayton Young, left, and Conner Mantz practice at the BYU track in Provo on Thursday, April 10, 2025. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News