Keflezighi and Flanagan to headline Beach to Beacon 10K fields

The wildly popular Beach to Beacon 10K announced that two American stars will headline the elite fields at this year’s race.

Meb Keflezighi and Shalane Flanagan, two American distance standouts from this spring’s Boston Marathon, will race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, for the local race that has grown in recent years to host one of the world’s most competitive 10K road races. Both will look to become the first American to win the event. Founded in 1998, no American has ever won. Keflezighi finished fourth in 2007, the best an American male has ever finished.

The event sports a prize pot of $10,000 for winners and an additional $2,500 if the winning time breaks the course record.

Earlier this year, in an emotional rebound at the Boston Marathon after two bombs were detonated at the finish in 2013, Keflezighi ran a large personal best at the age of 38 to become to first American male since 1983 to win the event. Flanagan also had a breakout performance, leading the race for 30K before fading to seventh, but still finishing with a huge personal best and becoming the third-fastest American woman ever.

One of the two women who have run faster than Flanagan is Joan Benoit Samuelson, the Beach to Beacon race founder and 1984 Olympic marathon champion.

The Beach to Beacon race has, in recent years, been so popular the 6,500 race bibs sell out in less than an hour, sometimes in a matter of minutes.

The race director is Dave McGillivray, who is also the race director for the Boston Marathon.