Monday was a beautiful day for a run in Boston. The sky was clear, the temperature was warm in the sunlight and chilly in the shade, and a steady breeze carried through the caverns of the Back Bay.
That’s the scene athletes experienced when they crossed the finish line at the 2025 Boston Marathon. The theme for the 129th marathon was “Meet the Moment” — and there were plenty of memorable moments to choose from.
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.”
Lokedi said the pace was fast from the start. She and Obiri were about neck and neck near the final turn onto Boylston Street when when she finally broke away.
“That last hill, that dip ... I was just like, ‘Just fight, fight, fight, fight,’” Lokedi said. “And, you know, that’s what was in my head the whole time.”
On the men’s side, John Korir of Kenya won with a time of 2:04:45. His win completes a bit of a dynasty: His brother, Wesley, won the marathon in 2012. They are believed to be the first pair of brothers to both win the Boston Marathon.
“Wesley told me expect the race to be tough and believe in yourself,” Korir said. “So I believed in myself and I followed his advice. And at the end he told me he’s happy and he’s enjoying now that we are two brothers that won Boston.”
The 2025 Marathon also marked the 50th anniversary of Bob Hall becoming the first wheelchair athlete to officially compete in the race.
That made victory even more special to first-place women’s wheelchair division champion Susannah Scaroni, who won with a 1:35:20 finish.
“I keep thinking about how appreciative I am for people like Bob Hall that they knew what the right thing was,” said Scaroni, an American who also won in 2023. “They fought to be included, they had integrity and for how hard they had to work and how much things have progressed since then, to get to be up here, to be in the invited professional field and professional sport, I think is just so much appreciation.”
Switzerland’s Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair division for the third time in a row and eighth time overall.
Monday’s finish line carried more weight than usual for former champ Des Linden, who warmed hearts with her first-place run through the cold rain in 2018’s professional women’s division. She announced her retirement from professional marathoning before the race started Monday.
Afterwards she said she spent her time on the course simply trying to focus on her run.
“I was all in on racing. And, in fact, I think if I had tried to do anything different I probably would have just been a puddle of tears,” she said.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord created Patriots’ Day with a shot heard ’round the world. Eyes and ears once again turned to Massachusetts almost exactly 250 years later as athletes from around the world found their own moment on the road from Hopkinton to Copley Square.
