By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
ATLANTA (27-Feb) — It’s hard to call it a half-marathon debut when an athlete has already raced double the distance, but Charles Hicks will run his first official half-marathon on Sunday here when he lines up for the USATF Half-Marathon Championships, part of the Publix Atlanta Marathon weekend organized by the Atlanta Track Club.
Hicks, 24, the 2022 NCAA cross country champion for Stanford, is dropping down in distance from his marathon debut at the TCS New York City Marathon last November where he clocked 2:09:59 and finished seventh (he ran halves of 1:05:20 and 1:04:39). He and his coach Jerry Schumacher decided to make the move to the marathon after Hicks ran a series of successful road races last year, including a sizzling 45:14 at the Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile in Washington, D.C., where he won the USATF title for the distance. Remarkably, that was Hicks’s first-ever road race, something he had been dying to try after years of running track and cross country in the NCAA system.
“Caging me in that circuit made it so fun for me to break free,” Hicks told Race Results Weekly in an interview here today. “It was like, I had been waiting for so long with so much apprehension. Could I really be a very good road runner? Once I got to it I was just so excited to be there.”
Hicks’s time at the Cherry Blossom would have been an American record, but because he was not yet eligible to represent the United States in international competition –Hicks was born in Great Britain to American parents and has both British and American citizenship– the record went to second place Alex Maier, who was one second behind.
But the record was besides the point. Hicks realized that he had found his calling as a runner.
“When I showed up I was pretty sure the front pack was going out like a minute slower than they actually were,” Hicks explained. “I didn’t realize that Conner Mantz had lowered the American record (at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon) by about 40 or 50 seconds. Even with that minute-slower chase pack I was only hoping to break into the top ten for that race. It was my first ever road race and I had never raced further than six miles.”
Before running the marathon in New York, Hicks ran two of America’s classic summer road races, the Steamboat Classic, a four-mile in Peoria, Ill. in June, and the Utica Boilermaker, a hilly 15-K in Utica, N.Y., in July. He ran 18:12 for the shorter race and 43:39 for the longer, and learned a lot more about road running. It was clearly his jam.
“The entire purpose of the previous year doing things under the marathon distance was to first, even answer the question, is this something to pursue? Do you have a proficiency for road running, or is this like the worst mistake you ever made? It’s supposed to take multiple races to get that answer, but after Cherry Blossom we were kind of sitting around and we were like, what else do we need to see to really take that step to the marathon?”
With a successful marathon under his belt –and plenty of recovery time– Hicks comes to Atlanta as one of the favorites to make the podium. Converting his 10-mile time to the half-marathon distance using the time-tested Riegel Formula, Hicks’s theoretical personal best would be 1:00:24. That would make him third-fastest man in Sunday’s field behind only Hillary Bor (59:55) and Isai Rodriguez (59:57). A top-three finish here would put Hicks on Team USATF for the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen in September. Hicks is excited for a competitive, man-to-man race.
“Even in the faster road races, the placement is always the primary goal,” Hicks said. “Getting on a podium at a Major, or getting a top position at a U.S. championship, that’s always something that always has very high value attached to it. That’s my favorite part of racing. So, Sunday that’s absolutely what I’ll be running for. The rest of my career, that’s the thing I’m going to relish about this.”
Under World Athletics rules, Hicks will be eligible to represent the United States in international competition beginning on July 14. Under USATF rules, Hicks can qualify for a national team now as long as the international event is scheduled for after his eligibility date. Should Hicks earn a team spot he’ll have to discuss with Coach Schumacher whether he will take it.
“There will absolutely be a conversation,” said Hicks, who wasn’t completely sure about his eligibility status. “My favorite thing about having Jerry as a coach is every single decision I’ve made as a professional athlete, I just throw it at him and whatever comes back I just do. Whatever he thinks is best we’ll march forward with that. So far, he has not given me a reason to doubt him.”
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Sunday’s USATF Half-Marathon Championships features a $110,000 prize money purse ($20,000 for the race winners), and a $2,500 bonus for the winners if they run the fastest times ever on Georgia soil (currently 1:00:36 and 1:07:22). The race will be broadcast LIVE and FREE via the Atlanta Track Club Youtube channel at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw_e1-bpPn0
PHOTO: Charles Hicks winning the USATF 10-Mile Championships at the 2025 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10-Mile in Washington, D.C. (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
PHOTO: Charles Hicks in Atlanta in advance of the 2026 USATF Half-Marathon Championships (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)
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RACE RESULTS WEEKLY is sponsored by RunCzech, organizers of the Prague Marathon and a series of iconic running events, including the Prague Half Marathon, part of the SuperHalfs, and Italy’s fastest half marathon, the Napoli City Half Marathon. Learn more at runczech.com.
ENDS
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