Boston —

Sisay Lemma powered through the first half of the Boston Marathon on Monday, setting a record with a strong finish and a lead of more than half a mile.

Then the weather warmed and the 34-year-old Ethiopian slowed down.

After running alone for much of the morning, Lema held on along Boylston Street and finished in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 17 seconds – the tenth fastest in the race’s 128-year history. results. After crossing the finish line, Lema collapsed on the pavement and rolled over with a smile on her face.

“I was running really hard and well up until the halfway point. But then it got harder and harder,” Lema said. In three previous attempts in Boston, Lema failed to finish twice and finished 30th. “I’ve quit racing many times before, but today I won, so I redeemed myself.”

Hellen Obiri defeated Sharon Lokedi at Boylston Street to defend her title in 2:27:37, winning by 8 seconds; twice Boston champion Edna Kiplagat beat Kenya by 36 seconds.

Obiri also won the New York Olympics last fall and is one of the favorites to compete in Paris. She is the sixth woman to win consecutively in Boston and the first since Catherine “the Great” Ndereba who won four titles in six years from 2000-05.

“It’s not easy to defend the title. There have only been six women since Boston’s inception. So I said, ‘Can I be one of them? If you want to be one of them, you have to work extra hard,’” she said. “I’m happy because I’m one of them now. I’m now in the history books of Boston.”

Lemma, the 2021 London champion, arrives in Boston with the fastest time on the course, having become just the fourth man ever to break 2:02:00 when he won in Valencia last year. He showed that on the course at Ashland on Monday, pulling away from the field with a lead of more than half a mile.

Lemma’s first-half time of 1:00:19 was 99 seconds faster than the record pace set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011, when his 2:03:02 was the fastest marathon in history results. Ethiopian Mohamed Esa closed the gap in the final miles to finish second in 41 seconds; two-time defending champion Evans Chebet was third.

Each winner received a gold-plated olive wreath and received $150,000 from the prize pool, which topped $1 million for the first time.

On that day, the sun was shining brightly and the temperature climbed into the 60s, and runners reached for water, drank it, and poured it over their heads. Obiri ran an unusually large group of 15 through Brookline and then stormed out in the final miles. .

Emma Bates of Boulder, Colo., finished 12th, marking her second consecutive year as No. 1 in the United States. She once again found herself in the lead in the 30-kilometer race, clapping her hands and chanting her name as she ran past Wellesley College students before disappearing on her way out of Heartbreak Mountain.

“I thought the sound last year was crazy, but this year it totally surpassed it,” Bates said. “It was a great day for the spectators. Not so great for the runners; it was very hot.”

CJ Albertson of Fresno, Calif., finished seventh to become the top American male player, his second top-10 finish.

Swiss runner Marcel Hug regained his balance after hitting an obstacle while turning too fast but still maintained the course record in the men’s wheelchair race. It was his seventh victory in Boston and his 14th consecutive major marathon victory.

Hug was four minutes and about 18 miles ahead by the time he reached Newton’s iconic Firehouse Turn, where the course turns onto Commonwealth Avenue toward Heartbreak Hill. He dashed through the fence, rolled sideways onto the revolver, but quickly recovered.

“It’s my fault,” Hager said. “My weight was too much, and the pressure from above was too much on my steering, so I couldn’t turn.”

Hager finished the race in 1 hour, 15 minutes and 33 seconds, winning by 5 minutes and 04 seconds, breaking his previous course record by 1 minute and 33 seconds. 22-year-old British runner Eden Rainbow-Cooper won the women’s wheelchair race in 1 hour, 35 minutes and 11 seconds, her first major victory in the marathon; she won the Boston Wheelchair Race The third youngest woman in the competition.

The otherwise sleepy New England town of Hopkinton celebrated its 100th anniversary as the starting line for the world’s oldest and most prestigious marathon, sending off 17 former champions and nearly 30,000 other runners. Near the Boylston Street terminus 26.2 miles (42.2 kilometers) away, officials celebrated the anniversary of the 2013 bombing that killed three people and injured hundreds.

Sunny skies and light winds greeted the runners, and temperatures rose from 40 to 69 degrees in the afternoon as the laggards gathered in Hopkinton as they crossed the finish line. As the course passed Natick, the fourth of eight towns on the route, athletes splashed themselves with water to cool down.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better day,” former New England Patriots tight end and general marshal Rob Gronkowski said before climbing into an electric car to drive him along the field . “No matter what event is happening, the city of Boston always comes out to support. The weather is perfect and the energy is high.”

The festivities began around 6 a.m. with race director Dave McGillivray seeing off about 30 members of the Massachusetts National Guard. Lt. Col. Paula Reichert Karsten, one of the marchers, said she wanted to be part of a “quintessentially Massachusetts event.”

The starting line reads “100th Anniversary of Hopkinton” to commemorate the move from Ashland to Hopkinton in 1924 to match the official Olympic marathon distance. The announcer welcomed the assembled crowd to “the sleepy little town of Hopkinton 364 days a year.”

“This is probably the coolest thing in town in Hopkinton,” said resident Maggie Agosto, 16, who came to the starting line with friends to watch the race.

The annual Patriot Day (a state holiday commemorating the outbreak of the Revolutionary War) race also coincides with “Boston Day,” when the city commemorates the victims of the 2013 finish line bombing. Before the game, bagpipes accompanied Governor Maura Healey, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and family members of the victims as they laid wreaths at the site of the explosion.