NYRR Media Center

Andrea Limon represented Mexico at the Tokyo Olympics this year and will be making her TCS New York City Marathon debut.

Limon grew up in Mexico City and was never involved in competitive sports as a kid, yet she ran laps around the track regularly as a hobby and for her general health. She turned to competitive running only after one of her college coaches encouraged her to turn her hobby into a career.

She quickly took to the sport, drawing on words of encouragement from her late mother, who she lost when she was 17. “Losing my mom so young taught me to seize every day and every opportunity, because you never know what may happen,” she said.

Limon ran a 1:12:44 half marathon in Monterrey in 2019, which qualified her to represent Mexico at the 2020 World Athletics Half Marathon Championships in Poland. She finished 20th in Poland and then improved her personal best to 2:26:34 at The Marathon Project last December, a time good enough to qualify her for Tokyo and the third-fastest time ever by a Mexican woman.

Limon holds a degree in international relations from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and also works part-time doing administrative work for her husband Mario’s accounting firm. During the COVID-19 pandemic she purchased a treadmill and weights to train from home, and when she couldn’t find certain weights she would fill water bottles and balloons with sand to serve as a substitute.