By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
(06-Nov) — Not even a full year into her professional running career, reigning USATF 10,000m champion Sydney Vaught already feels the pull of the sport’s longer distances. The 23 year-old former Arkansas Razorback, who sees her future in the marathon, will step-up to the half-marathon distance for the first time this Sunday at the Boston Half, America’s most prestigious fall half-marathon, organized by the Boston Athletic Association, founders and organizers of the Boston Marathon.
“Honestly, I have always just been super-interested in running kind of the longer distances that you don’t see in the NCAA,” Vaught told Race Results Weekly in a telephone interview last night. “Even just growing up I had always wanted to run a marathon and try half-marathons. I think that I handle the mileage really well, and so I just kind of test the waters and see where things are at. Someday I want to be more serious about the half-marathon, the marathon, so kind of having an earlier start and getting some experience under my belt I think is the whole thought process.”
Vaught, née Thorvaldson, grew up in Rawlins, Wyoming (altitude 6834 feet/2083m), and showed her distance chops early. Just as sports were making a return in 2021 after the COVID pandemic, Vaught ran the second-fastest indoor two-mile ever by an American high school girl, 9:47.95. At Arkansas she competed at the NCAA Cross Country Championships four times with a best finish of 11th in 2023 (she also placed 13th in 2025). On the track she was the SEC 5000m indoor champion in both 2024 and 2026, and won the SEC 10,000m title in 2023. Training hard, she got her personal bests down to national-class territory: 15:02.52 for 5000m and 32:21.37 for 10,000m.
But after turning pro with Nike last April, Vaught quickly exposed herself to some of America’s most competitive road races and loved the whole vibe. She made her pro debut at the famed Carlsbad 5000 in California where she finished fifth in 15:38, and she took ninth at the USATF 5-K Championships in Indianapolis last May in 15:24. Last June, she ran the world’s oldest and most famous women’s road race, the Mastercard Mini 10-K in New York, where she tested herself against some of the world’s best distance women like Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich, Hellen Obiri, and Sharon Lokedi. She finished 13th in 32:16, an excellent time for such a hilly course. She wanted more.
“It’s awesome,” Vaught told Race Results Weekly immediately after the Mini. “I’m lined up with people that I’ve looked up to and been my inspiration since getting into this sport at a young age. Seeing how they compete, and seeing myself on the same starting line, has actually been a dream come true.”
Vaught will face a similar-quality field in Boston where six women have personal bests of 1:08:02 or better, and two-time defending champion Fentaye Belayneh of Ethiopia has a career best of 1:04:49. The course, which begins and ends in Franklin Park, has several challenging hills. Vaught, who loves cross country, thinks it’s the perfect place –and time– for her first half-marathon.
“I think it will be nice to kind of not be so worried necessarily about running an absolutely crazy time,” Vaught explained. “The course will be tough and it is my first time running a half, so the expectation is –again– to just get some experience and kind of be able to respect the distance and respect the athletes in the race. I just want to see how I can compete and hopefully run a faster time later on, like early next year.”
Vaught was quick to remind this reporter that she still has goals on the track. Last July in New York City she won the USATF 10,000m title on her first attempt (with a nearly three-minute negative split) and finished fourth in the 5000m.
“I think I’m just going to kind of play it by ear, but right now I still have a lot that I want to accomplish on the track,” Vaught said. “So for now it’s definitely a balance, a little bit of a hybrid. But as I said, I’ve always just felt so called to do halfs, marathons, and I think that will be my distance eventually. But, I think I want to dabble on the track as long as I can and as long as I can find a way to balance the two. I want to see what I can do on the track before I ease away from that and do more on the roads.”
Right now, Vaught has an unusual training set-up. She and her husband, Brody Vaught, live in Cassville, Mo., about a one hour drive north from Fayetteville, Ark., where she went to college. She regularly drives to Fayetteville to work-out under the supervision of Razorbacks coach Marc Burns, and she also likes to return home to Rawlins, not only to see family but to take advantage of the high altitude. That’s what she did before Sunday’s race in Boston.
“I typically go to Fayetteville once or twice a week for workouts,” Vaught said. “The rest of the time I spend in Missouri just kind of training on my own. It’s nice having family in Wyoming at 7000 feet so I can go to altitude before I race and get to see my family. It’s a good situation.”
Although she enjoys living in Missouri, Wyoming still feels like home for Vaught.
“I love it,” she said with pride. “I would live there forever if I could.”
Vaught’s husband, Brody, is a professional rodeo cowboy. More specifically, he’s a team roper who competes with another athlete, also on horseback, to rope calves or steers. Like Sydney, Brody also competes against the clock, but ropers usually only need five or six seconds to conclude each run. Not surprisingly, Sydney is a big rodeo fan.
“I think it’s exciting; I love watching him go out and compete,” Vaught said. “I loved watching rodeo anyway, so it really helps that I have someone to watch and get into rodeos for free.”
The couple had a cowboy-themed wedding at the Farmhouse Retreat, a big barn in East Texas in October, 2025. The groomsmen wore white shirts, grey vests and black cowboy hats.
“He loves Texas,” Vaught explained. “We looked at a few venues and thought it was perfect.”
Leading up to Sunday’s race, Vaught got some extra inspiration from watching both the Chicago and New York City marathons on broadcast. Big marathons have more meaning for her now, not only because she hopes to compete in them someday but because some of her friends and past teammates were competing. She was especially focused on New York where her former Razorback teammate Julia Paternain was competing. Vaught and Paternain finished one-two in the SEC Championships 10,000m back in 2023.
“I watched New York, and it’s such an exciting race,” Vaught said. “It’s so awesome because I even know some of these people personally. Like I’ve even raced with some of them. It’s incredible to kind of see how all of that plays out. Someday I hope that I’ll be racing with some of them as well.”
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The Boston Half will be held for the 24th time on Sunday on a USATF-certified and record-eligible course. It’s the third leg of the B.A.A. Distance Medley, which also includes the Boston 5-K in April and the B.A.A. 10-K in June. Last year’s race had 7073 finishers, and the event records are 1:00:34 for the men (Lelisa Desisa, Ethiopia, 2013), and 1:07:40 for the women (Brillian Kipkoech, Kenya, 2019). The overall male and female winners will earn $15,000 in prize money, and the B.A.A. is offering $10,000 bonuses if either course records are broken. The race also has professional wheelchair and para athletics divisions.
PHOTO: Sydney Vaught finishing the 2026 Mastercard New York Mini 10-K last June (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
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