Sharon Lokedi (born March 10, 1994) is a Kenyan

middle Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek ...

and

long-distance runner Long-distance running, or endurance running, is a form of continuous running over distances of at least . Physiologically, it is largely Aerobic exercise, aerobic in nature and requires stamina as well as mental strength. Within endurance ru ...

. She won the

10,000 meters The 10,000 metres or the 10,000-metre run is a common long-distance track running event. The event is part of the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, and is common at championship-level events. The r ...

at the

2018 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships The 2018 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships were the 97th NCAA Men's Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships and the 37th NCAA Women's Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships held for the sixth consecutive yea ...

. Lokedi has been a 10-time

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

n and 12-time

Big 12 The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Okla ...

champion, as of March 2019.Sharon Lokedi
''

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

'', 2018. Retrieved June 10, 2018. In 2022, on her

marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

debut, she won the

New York City Marathon The New York City Marathon, currently branded as the TCS New York City Marathon for sponsorship reasons, is an annual marathon () that courses through the five boroughs of New York City. It is the largest marathon in the world, with 53,627 fini ...

. Lokedi was recruited to the

(KU) where she has studied nursing and business. She began competing first in collegiate track and cross country in 2015.

Early life

Sharon is the daughter of Jonathan and Rose Lokedi. She has three younger siblings.

High school

At the Kapkenda Girls’ School she won four letters in track. She is the school record holder in the 3000-meter and 5000-meter races. In 2013, she was named the school's "Best Athlete of the Year."

University of Kansas

As a freshman in 2015, she finished sixth in her first collegiate race, clocking 10:06.11 for the 3000 m at the indoors Husker Invitational. She improved that time for 3,000 m at the Big 12 Championship finishing 15th in 9:48.10, which made her the No. 8 KU performer ever. In the same meet, she took 13th in the 5000 meters in 17:31.38. She led her team in all of the five 2015 races in which she ran, and became the second All-American in KU program history as a result of finishing 10th in the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships with a 6K time of 20:04.9 and finished third at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships, in 20:14.9. She took 11th in 21:09.5 at the Big 12 Championship and ran 20:08.3 and 4th at the Pre-National Invitational. In 2016, at the NCAA Indoors, she finished sixth in the 5000 m in 15:58.61 and won the Big 12 3000 meter Indoor Championship, adding a fifth place in the 3000 m with another PR, 9:26.89. She finished third in the Iowa State Classic 5000 m with a PR 15:57.95. At the KU/Kansas State/Wichita State Triangular a 4:56.39 earned her a win. Outdoors she took sixth in the 10,000 m at the 2016 NCAA Outdoor Championships with another PR of 32:49.43 and won the 10,000 m in 34:59.58 at the Big 12 Outdoor Championship, taking seventh as well in the 5000 m at 15:47.97. She finished 14th in the 10,000 m at the Stanford Invitational in 33:10.06. Her fifth place, 19:52.2 at the 2016 NCAA Cross Country Championships came as still another PR. Sharon

redshirted Redshirt, in United States college athletics, is a delay or suspension of an athlete's participation in order to lengthen their period of eligibility. Typically, a student's athletic eligibility in a given sport is four seasons, aligning with the ...

her 2017 indoor season for medical reasons. In the 2017 NCAA outdoor 10K, she finished third and also was third in the 2018 NCAA indoor 5K. She set the Kansas school record in the 10,000 m at the 2017 NCAA Outdoor Championship, finishing third in 32:46.10 to earn All-America honors after winning Big 12 titles in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters. She set another school record finishing second in the 5000-meter run in 16:00.6 at the Stanford Cardinal Classic. She lowered that record at the Stumptown Twilight meet with a 15:44.51. Her 4:29.88 won the 1500-meter run at the Rock Chalk Classic. She was named the Big 12 Women’s Cross Country Runner of the Year for the second consecutive season. She became just the fourth female in Big 12 history to win multiple individual conference titles with her first place finish, running 20:00.5 at the Big 12 Championship. She was the runner-up in the NCAA Midwest Regional (11/10) with a time of 20:12 and placed 44th at the NCAA Championships in 20:15.14. In 2018, Sharon lowered her KU school record in the 5000 m with an indoor time of 15:39.05, and set an indoor PR when winning the Mark Colligan Memorial mile in 4:45.84, then ran 4:45.56 to win the Rod McCravy Memorial mile. Her 8:59.69 became the school record holder in the 3,000-meter run at the Iowa State University Classic. She won the 5000 m and 3000 m crowns at the Big 12 Indoor Championship running 16:26.57 and 9:19.97, respectively. In the NCAA Indoor Championships she finished third in the 5000 m with a 15:52.95, and combined with her sixth in the 3000 m in 9:03.68 she secured two First Team All-America recognitions. In the Stanford Invitational her 32:21.19 had her finishing fifth and later, she PR'd at 1500 m at the National Relay Championships in 4:25.94. On the last lap of the

10,000 m, Lokedi stormed past pre-race favorite and six-time NCAA titlist Karissa Schweizer. Lokedi ran 32:09.20 to win, beating third-place Schweizer by 5.74 seconds, 18 seconds under the existing meet record, set by Sylvia Mosqueda thirty years earlier.NCAA 10K Preview: Anna Rohrer, Marc Scott Aim For First National Titles
''FloTrack'', Johanna Gretschel, Jun 5, 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2018. Lokedi ran 15:15.47 in a December 2018 Boston Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener to earn the 2019 World Championships 5000 m entry standard, No. 6 best time in

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates College athletics in the United States, student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, and Simon Fraser University, 1 in Canada. ...

History (on a 200-meter track) and indoor school record. At the 2019

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities (3 private universities and 13 public universities) in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida ...

indoor track and field championship, Lokedi won both 5000 m in 16:11.50 and 3000 m in 9:20.71. At the

2019 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships The 2019 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships was the 55th NCAA Men's Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships and the 38th NCAA Women's Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, held at the Birmingham CrossPlex in ...

, Lokedi raced the 5000 m and placed 11th in 16:06.21.

Professional competition

In her first race as a pro, Lokedi easily won the Carlsbad 5K in 15:38 and her boyfriend of two years,

Edward Cheserek Edward Cheserek (born 2 February 1994) is a Kenyan distance runner. He is a 17-time NCAA champion collegiate distance runner for the University of Oregon. Cheserek was the most highly recruited high school distance runner in the nation out of Sai ...

, tied an IAAF world record of 13:29 in the men's race. In November 2022, Lokedi pulled off an upset when debuting in the

as she triumphed by seven seconds in the

with a time of 2:23:23. In April 2025, Lokedi won the

2025 Boston Marathon The 2025 Boston Marathon was the 129th official edition of the Boston Marathon, annual marathon race in Boston, Massachusetts, held on Monday, . It was a World Athletics Label Road Races, Platinum Label marathon, one of seven World Marathon Ma ...

, setting a women's course record of 2:17:22.

Personal bests

3000 meters The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000 m shou ...

– 9:14.18 ( Chandler, AZ 2021) *

5000 meters The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a sta ...

– 15:18.03 (

Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city ...

2020) *

– 31:11.07 ( San Juan Capistrano, CA 2020) * 5 kilometres – 15:16 (

Boston, MA Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

2022) * 10 kilometres – 31:06 (

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

2022) *

Half marathon A half marathon is a road running event of —half the distance of a marathon. It is common for a half marathon event to be held concurrently with a marathon or a 5K race, using almost the same course with a late start, an early finish, or shortcu ...

– 1:08:14 (

New York, NY New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

2022) *

Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of kilometres ( 26 mi 385 yd), usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There ...

– 2:17:22 (

2025)

References

External links

* * *
Sharon Lokedi University of Kansas Track and Field 2019 profile

Lokedi University of Kansas March 2019 video marketing

Sharon Lokedi University of Kansas June 2018 interview after winning NCAA Outdoor Track 10,000 m title

Sharon Lokedi University of Kansas June 2018 profile

Sharon Lokedi University of Kansas wins her first Big 12 XC Championship October 2016 interview

Sharon Lokedi Big 12 Conference TV Commercial 2017
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lokedi, Sharon Living people 1993 births Kenyan female cross country runners Kenyan female middle-distance runners Kenyan female long-distance runners Kansas Jayhawks women's track and field athletes Kansas Jayhawks women's cross country runners Athletes from Uasin Gishu County NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners Olympic athletes for Kenya Boston Marathon female winners Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics