Conner Mantz may not have left the Chicago Marathon with the win, but he did achieve something very special. Coming in fourth, with Jacob Kiplimo taking the win, Mantz absolutely smashed the American marathon record with a clock-in time of 2:04:43, nearly a whole minute quicker than Khalid Khannouchi’s 2002 record of 2:05:38. He covered the first half of the race in 1:02:19, running nearly even splits. But breaking the American marathon record came at a literal bloody price.

A few days before the race, Mantz appeared on the Citius Mag Podcast, where he revealed to host Chris Chavez that he had a recurring blister problem and that almost every race he runs ends in bleeding feet. It’s a condition that’s made worse by any humidity.

While he hoped he could avoid that fate in Chicago, it was for naught. Taking to X, Chavez shared a picture of Mantz’s white Nike runner shoes, saturated with blood near the toebox. In the caption, Chavez wrote, “Today, it took a little bit of blood to break the American record in 2:04:43.”

But in addition to the blisters, Mantz was also dealing with what he described as a “gash” on his big toe. Interestingly enough, his method to deal with it was to use actual superglue to seal the wound shut. He explained that skiers and snowboarders often used what is essentially medical-grade superglue on cuts, but when he went to the physician to acquire some, they were unable to find it. But when Mantz visited another physician, they prescribed actual superglue to deal with his toe.

Did it lead to a bloody shoe? Mantz confessed, “Like every time I ran, my sock was bloody for like three weeks. Actually, like from New Haven, like I just got really bad blisters…”  Mantz also had to deal with the aforementioned blister problem amidst the cut: “If it’s even slightly humid, I will have like bloody feet by the end of it.” But why does he get these blisters?

Mantz revealed that his second toes are actually bent outwards, shaped like a ‘V.’ And whenever he runs, this bend causes enough friction with his spikes to give him nasty blisters, especially when it’s humid. “But like my second toes on both feet are like bent like this, and so I get these nasty blisters,” said Mantz,

Despite the pain, his resilience shows why he’s America’s best long-distance runner, pushing through every mile with determination. Conner Mantz is already a professional with the NCAA Cross Country Championships victories in 2020 and 2021. He has run the Houston Half Marathon, the 2024 Paris Olympic Marathon, the Boston Marathon, and many more races. But there’s one more hurdle that he needs to surpass for a top-three finish.

Conner Mantz reflects on Alex Masai at the Chicago Marathon 2025

Following the race, Conner Mantz said, “That was a great feeling…those last few miles were really tough. Even with ten miles to go, I stayed in the moment, thinking about what is going to run to secure the new American record.” But despite his dominance in the American long-distance scene, he was unable to make up those hundredths of a second to pip Alex Masai for third place.

Nevertheless, he declared that he was happy for his competitor as Masai edged out Mantz by six seconds. Though he didn’t make the podium, he still reached his biggest goal heading into the race that he and coach Ed Eyestone had been targeting for months: the American record.

“With a couple miles to go, I was pretty confident I was going to break the record,” Mantz said after the race. “I knew I had broken the record when I crossed the finish line. I was pretty happy.”

Now, Conner Mantz has put his focus on the USATF Cross-Country Championship scheduled for the 6th of December. And after that, he’ll run at the World Cross-Country Championship in Tallahassee, Florida, in January 2026. Who knows… Maybe he can break a few more records there. But first, he needs to take care of his bleeding toes.