Live updates on the 2025 Boston Marathon

Last year, Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi lost to her compatriot Hellen Obiri by just eight seconds in the professional women’s race. But Lokedi flipped the script this year to win with a time of 2:17:22, setting a new course record in the process.

Afterwards, Lokedi showed respect to Obiri, who was the defending back-to-back champion.

“The only difference this year is where she passed me last year is where I passed her today,” Lokedi said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘I’m just not gonna let her take it today from me,’ so I just wanted to fight as hard as I could. But, you know, I really love competing with her, she’s a really good competitor and I’m glad that we had to tough it out together.”

See GBH’s full roundup on race day here.

Whit Blair, a 26-year-old American, won the professional nonbinary division with an unofficial time of 2:22:44 — the fastest a nonbinary runner has completed the course in that division.

Athletes could compete in the division for the first time in 2023 and, this year, more than 50 athletes competed in the category.

In the handcycle divisions, 55-year-old American Alfredo Delossantos won the men’s race with an unofficial time of 1:07:35, and 54-year-old American JoAnn Outten-Kenton won the women’s division with an unofficial time of 1:42:57.

GBH staff turned their camera lenses to the spectators who were cheering on the 30,000 athletes at the 129th Boston Marathon.

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Spectators cheered on runners in Natick, Massachusetts.

Craig LeMoult / GBH News

Spectators cheer near the finish line of the 129th Boston Marathon.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Spectators cheer runners on with flags and posters at the 129th Boston Marathon in Natick, Massachusetts.

Craig LeMoult / GBH News

Spectators near the finish line cheer runners on in Boston, Mass., at the 129th Boston Marathon.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Spectators were whooping and cheering in Natick along the famous 26.2-mile course.

Craig LeMoult / GBH News

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Elite and amateur athletes raced the notorious Boston course on a hot Marathon Monday.

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Sharon Lokedi, who set a new course record in the professional women’s division, celebrates at the end of the race.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Marcel Hug of Switzerland won the men’s wheelchair division of the 2025 Boston Marathon on April 21, 2025.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Sharon Lokedi, Amane Beriso, Hellen Obiri and Yalemzerf Yehualaw lead the pack in the women’s professional division. Lokedi from Kenya pulled ahead in the final mile to win and set a new course record. She bested second-place finishe Obiri — who won the division these last two years — by 19 seconds.

Phillip Martin / GBH News

Supporters on the course — and off it — made their own signs to cheer on the 30,000 athletes racing the Boston Marathon course.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Athletes celebrate at the finish line of the 129th Boston Marathon.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

Dozens of amateur runners make their way to the Boylston Street finish line in the 129th Boston Marathon on April 21, 2025.

Phillip Martin / GBH News

To qualify for Boston, male runners had to run another marathon in under 2 hours and 54 minutes.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

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For Colleen Leddie, a crisis support clinician at Pine Street Inn, the Boston Marathon is bigger than 26.2. It’s a celebration of purpose and the power of putting one foot in front of the other — literally.

This is Leddie’s first time running the marathon, and she wants her inaugural crossing of the finish line to represent two things: raising awareness for homelessness and honoring the memory of her late aunt, who first introduced her to running and ran the Boston Marathon herself many times. Her aunt passed away from breast cancer in 2014.

“She’s been a major source of inspiration, a backbone for me, a total rock in terms of a support system for me,” Leddie told GBH’s All Things Considered Friday. “I’m going to be honest with you — I didn’t love running growing up, and it wasn’t until her passing that I really got into running as an outlet, a way to process grief and a way to support myself.”

Leddie raised more than $12,000 for the Pine Street Inn. In her role as a crisis support clinician, Leddie said she spends much of her time helping people experiencing homelessness get back on their feet.

“[I] hold their hand through the journey that they’re experiencing, and I’d love to use the cliché because I feel like I can: It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon,” Leddie said. “That could not ring more true for these folks.”

Boston Athletic Association President Jack Fleming said the marathon has grown over the decades, and now “it takes a commonwealth” to prepare for the 26.2 mile race.

“The eight cities and towns have been fantastic,” he told Boston Public Radio on Friday.

BAA also has 9,750 volunteers working across 300 different areas, Fleming said, including “bib assembly, food assembly for the post-race system ... water hydration stations, officiating, checking people into the corrals, cleaning up.”

When a winner crosses the Boylston Street finish line, Lois Corman is watching from the bell tower at Old South Church. She gives her husband, David Vogan, the go-ahead. He pulls the rope, ringing the 130-year-old bell to welcome the athletes at the end of their race.

“I decided that a ‘lookout’ was needed because I wanted to come along,” Corman said. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

Rian Nelson GBH News

And although it’s a relatively new tradition, it’s become an integral part of the Boston Marathon experience.

The marathon’s finish line has been moved several times over the years. It took its current position on Boylston Street in 1985. Vogan began ringing the bell on race day sometime in the 1990s.

“We talked about ringing the bells for the marathon winners since the finish line is right here, the bell is right here, it seemed like a really natural kind of celebration of them,” he said.

Hear the bell toll, and learn more about this marathon tradition, here.

Rian Nelson GBH News

Sharon Lokedi from Kenya pulled ahead in the final mile to win the women’s professional division — and, with her unofficial time of 2:17:22, set a new course record in her division by two-and-a-half minutes.

The last record was set in 2014 by Buzunesh Deba from Ethiopia in 2:19:59.

John Korir of Kenya took home the professional men’s division with an unofficial time of 2:04:45. His brother Wesley Korir won the 2012 Boston Marathon (this year, the younger Korir bested his time by nearly eight minutes).

Korir was closely followed by Alphonce Felix Simbu from Tanzania and Kenyan Cybrian Kimurgor Kotut — both finishing in 2:05:04 — and American Conner Mantz finished in fourth place another four seconds behind.

Rian Nelson GBH News

Even before the starting gun was fired in Hopkinton, a horse was spooked in Copley Square.

This weekend, the commonwealth marked the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord — and the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous midnight ride.

First Sgt. Matthew Johnson, dressed as Paul Revere Monday, arrived by horesback at the finish line yelling, “The runners are coming, the runners are coming!”

The horse stopped just short of the finish line, apparently spooked by the marathon logo emblazoned on the ground. Johnson dismounted and led his horse across the finish line, then unfurled a scroll and read out a proclamation to observe Revere’s ride.

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First Sgt. Matthew Johnson, dressed as Paul Revere, led the horse across the 2025 Boston Marathon finish line on April 21, 2025.

Rian Johnson / GBH News

First Sgt. Matthew Johnson unfurled a scroll after he crossed the finish line, with the words commemorating the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride.

Rian Nelson / GBH News

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