Consider how close Leonard Korir, 33, a Kenyan-born member of the U.S. Army, came to making the team. He spent most of the last 10 miles of the race in perfect position to use his speed to book his ticket to the Olympics. He left the finish area without making the team or speaking to reporters. Who could blame him? In his debut marathon in October, Korir blazed a course in Amsterdam with a time of 2 hours 7 minutes 56 seconds, making him the second fastest qualifier in Saturday’s field.

But when he needed a final burst in the last quarter-mile, he came up short, closing a 20-meter gap between him and Abdi Abdirahman to two or three strides, only to finish three seconds out. Korir’s time was 2:10:06, Abdirahman’s 2:10:03.

So it was left to Linden, 36, a two-time Olympian, to explain what it felt like to be so close. “Bummer,’’ she said, still processing it.

She has experienced this kind of heartbreak: In 2011 at the Boston Marathon, she was right there down the final stretch on Boylston Street. She had never been faster. She ran the race she had dreamed of winning more than any other in 2:22:38, but was outkicked by Caroline Kilel of Kenya by two seconds.

Linden named her dog Boston because the race meant so much to her, and in 2018, on a day when the bone-chilling rain came sideways, it all went right for her.

She has been trying to get back to something like that place ever since, and on Saturday, it seemed as if she was going to.

She took her turn leading a deep group of elite women into the second half of the race, also making sure to tuck in and protect herself from the wind and let some of the others do some of the hardest work. She had shown twice before that she knows how to get on the podium in this race, where third is as good as first, and fourth can hurt way more than 27th.