Who Will Be The Next Mayor Of New York? ⏱️
Lap 244: Sponsored by HOKA
Sponsored by HOKA
🔜 We’re less than a week away for all of the New York City Marathon festivities, shakeouts and events to take over The Big Apple. CITIUS MAG is proud to partner with HOKA for another year of programming out of the HOKA flagship store at 579 5th Avenue.
There will be group runs led by Hellah Sidibe + Lucy Georgia as well as crew runs by Worlds Fair Run Crew + Mile Style. 🏃
Giveaways of commemorative HOKA x NYC 2025 merchandise including shirts, tote bags and more. 👕
HOKA is also partnering with Sofar Sounds for an easy run + secret concert experience on Thursday, Oct. 30th.
Opportunities to test and shop for the HOKA Mach X 3 and the Rocket X 3. HOKA will also have a hub at the marathon expo. 👟
Plus: The HOKA Flagship store will also be the home for CITIUS MAG’s coverage of the elite races on Nov. 2nd as Chris Chavez, Eric Jenkins and Aisha Praught Leer bring you their commentary, analysis and humor with our pre-race show on Oct. 31st and then our LIVE watchalong on Sunday morning.
💻 You can register and get more details for all of the events at the link here.
Compiled by David Melly & Paul Snyder
New Yorkers Choose The Best Female Marathoner In The World (And The U.S. Too!) 🗳️
The largest marathon in the U.S. has a lot to offer. With 55,000+ runners taking to the streets of the city’s five boroughs, there’s plenty to watch—but for hardcore running fans, all the best action is going down at the front of the pack.
Election Day in New York may be Tuesday, but the real contest is taking place two days earlier. Two new champions will be crowned in the men’s and women’s elite fields. Defending champs Abdi Nageeye and Sheila Chepkirui are running for re-election, but interestingly neither is the biggest name on the marquee. Nageeye will try to hold off 2021 champ Albert Korir, three-time World Marathon Major champ Benson Kipruto, and 2024 London champ Alexander Mutiso, among others. And the two biggest names are unlikely to contend for the win, but will surely contend for the most cheers: all-time legends Kenenisa Bekele and Eliud Kipchoge. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see World champ Alphonce Simbu or 2022 NYC champ Evans Chebet, who both withdrew from the race.
Americans in the field include Biya Simbassa—the fifth fastest U.S. marathoner in history—and the highly anticipated debuts of tracksters Joe Klecker, Hillary Bor, and Charlie Hicks. But wait – Hicks is British, is he not? Well the Stanford alum, who’s lived in the U.S. since he was 12, became eligible to represent Team USA in June. And he’s opting for baptism by fire against Klecker, one of the top marathon prospects in the current track ranks, and Bor, a two-time Olympian in the steeplechase.
But enough about the men. When the runners hit the Verrazzano Bridge on Sunday, it’ll be the women’s race that likely proves more intriguing, with three of the best marathoners in the game go head-to-head-to-head. Hellen Obiri (2023 NYC champ, two-time Boston champ, Olympic bronze), Sifan Hassan (Olympic champ, three-time major champ, #3 all time), and Sharon Lokedi (2022 NYC champ, 2025 Boston champ) will throw their respective hats in the ring to deny Chepkirui a second title. In addition to unofficial mayor of New York status (sorry to those other guys), a win here will likely secure the position of world #1.
Before we even get to NYC, what have these three done so far in 2025? Hassan has been the busiest of the bunch, as usual: New York will be her third marathon this year after finishing third in London and winning the Sydney Marathon in its first year as a major. Lokedi outsprinted Obiri for the win in Boston this spring, with both women shattering the previous course record. Right now, the top marathoner in the world is likely Tigst Assefa, who beat Hassan in London and picked up a World silver, but the field assembled for New York is stronger than the one assembled for the World Championship itself.
It’s understandable to assume that Hassan wouldn’t be favored in her third marathon of the year just two months after Sydney, but this is Sifan Hassan we’re talking about. She’s actually raced a lot less than normal in 2025, as her only two races on the docket so far have been her two marathons. That’s two races less than she ran at the Paris Olympics in the span of two weeks! Count her ability to bounce back out at your own peril.
Hassan hasn’t been completely unbeatable in marathons, but in six attempts at the distance she’s won four. Just as significantly, anyone who beats Hassan in a marathon will join a small club that currently only has five members total. If Hassan wins, she has to be considered the top dog over Assefa, and if anyone else wins, beating Hassan will be a key line in their resume.
Obiri has been one of the most consistently great marathoners in the circuit over the same period as Hassan. In seven races, she’s won Boston twice and New York once, and since finishing sixth in her debut in New York in 2022, only four women have beaten her: Hassan, Assefa, Lokedi, and Chepkirui. To beat an all-time great, you have to be an all-time great. She’s also finished on every marathon podium since her debut, so her consistency is up there with the best.
Lokedi doesn’t have the track resume of either Hassan or Obiri, but since taking to the marathon she’s been stellar. If she goes two-for-two with Boston and New York wins, she’ll become the only woman in the world this year to win two majors, and that alone makes a compelling case for world #1. She’s got two wins, a second, and a third in six career marathons, and her one blemish was a ninth-place run in NYC last year (after a short post-Olympics turnaround). Few marathoners are as consistent as the women at the top of the ticket for New York this year, so it’s extremely likely that two or three of them will run really, really well and still lose.
The American field is also likely to result in the best finisher being the best U.S. runner this year, in part because it’s been a pretty quiet year so far for the women. NYC features the return of two of the most decorated American marathoners of the 2020s: U.S. record holder Emily Sisson and Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel. Sisson has had a fairly low-key year to date, with no marathons on her card and only a 1:09:19 season’s best in the half. But she also has the highest ceiling of anyone in the field, as her PB is two full minutes clear of the next fastest U.S. entrant, 42-year-old Sara Hall.
Seidel is a big unknown, as the now-Texas-based runner has only raced once this year, a low-key half, and hasn’t run a marathon since 2023. She’s talked about dabbling with trail racing, but remains committed to keeping 26.2 on her schedule through 2028, so who knows what kind of form she’s bringing to NYC. The last time she hit the Big Apple was back in 2021, but it was a real good one: she ran 2:24:42 for fourth place, a time that’s still the fastest any American has run on the hilly course.
The field also features Worlds fourth-placer Susanna Sullivan and Olympic Marathon Trials winner Fiona O’Keeffe, among others. If Sullivan takes top American honors here she’ll have the best two-race resume of anyone this year, and if O’Keeffe has the talent to potentially knock it out of the park in her first marathon since dropping out of the Olympics just steps into the race.
New York’s position as the final World Marathon Major on the docket each year often means it’s an opportunity for athletes to end their season with an exclamation mark. Sure, someone will surely run stupid-fast at Valencia in December, but in order to win this election race, you’ve gotta bring your best stuff against a stupid-stacked field. So there’s more than a $100,000 first prize at stake: there’s another one-year term as the top marathoner in your sphere. And every vote step counts.
A Swan Song Worth Singing For Bekele And Kipchoge 🎶
Wait, hold on—Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele are both running New York? The Eliud Kipchoge and the Kenenisa Bekele??
While it’s looking fairly unlikely that either GOAT will really factor in for the win, it’s still notable that two of the best distance runners in history are going head to head once again. It’ll be the sixth time in their careers that Kipchoge and Bekele match up in the marathon, and the first since the Paris Olympics, where, frankly, neither did great (Bekele finished 39th and Kipchoge dropped out). Prior to that, Kipchoge had won their last four matchups, but across their long, illustrious careers, Bekele is up 16 to 7 across track, roads, and World XC.
Let’s be honest with ourselves: the Kipchoge of the last decade is not the same runner we see on the starting line now. And that’s okay! Kipchoge turns 41 in a week, and Bekele is 43 years young. More than anything else, it’s impressive that both these guys are still going: it’s exceedingly rare that athletes of their caliber even bother to keep up the grueling training and race schedule into their 40s, and as a result we’re getting inarguably the best masters’ matchup in marathoning history on Sunday.
That’s not to say that either runner is completely washed. Kipchoge has raced two marathons already this year, returning to the streets of London in April to run 2:05:25 and lending his celebrity to the first Sydney Marathon to count as a World Major. He’s never raced New York before, and when he crosses the finish line, he’ll become the most prolific runner in history to complete the six—now seven—marathon circuit. At one point, he’d expressed a desire to win them all, but unless he manages a truly miraculous return to Boston and Sydney, he’ll have to settle for finishing—potentially in the top ten of each one.
Bekele hasn’t raced since 2024, but last season he ran an incredible 2:04:15 for second place at the London Marathon, a truly mind-boggling masters’ world record. The fact that he was a late addition to the start list presumably means he’s trending the right direction versus the wrong one, health- and fitness-wise, but latter-period Bekele has been a bit of a dice roll. He’s seemingly as likely to podium as drop out at any point in the race.
Who perseveres in the Battle of the Uncs will make for an interesting subplot, but that’s somewhat beside the point. These are titans of the sport whose presence lends eyeballs and intrigue, and every additional start line they tack onto the ends of their careers is a gift to the fans. Sure, they’re being paid handsomely by race organizers to not retire, but there are way easier ways to make a couple bucks than going through a whole race buildup and two-hour grinder. Neither man is going to win, but neither is going to jog, and they deserve credit for that.
Marathons like Boston and New York enable a meeting-in-the-middle of casual runner and hardcore fan, and the best way to bridge that gap is to give the sign-holders and mimosa-drinkers lining the course a recognizable name or two to catch their eye. It’s a bit like Lionel Messi finishing out his soccer career in the MLS: sure, it’s more of a spectacle and a curiosity than a substantive chapter in a storied career, but it allows an enormous international star to bring eyeballs, sponsors, and energy to a sport that’s struggled to gain a foothold in the U.S.
If and when Kipchoge and Bekele ride off into the sunset, the sport will lose something irreplaceable. They really don’t make ‘em like that any more. Even big recent stars like Joshua Cheptegei or Yomif Kejelcha don’t have the cache or the clout that they do. Both Kipchoge and Bekele could’ve easily stuck to cushy ambassador-style appearances and/or living a life of luxury in their home countries, but instead they’re tapering down and lacing up for a high-stakes race on a tough course. We’re lucky they’re not tired of entertaining us just yet.
Introducing The World Treadmill Championships! But Why? 🤷
Early this week, World Athletics announced that next year it will partner with a major gym equipment company on a global event to crown the world’s best treadmill runners. The press conference featured a cheesing Jimmy Gressier, flanked by Seb Coe and Technogym’s CEO, and included a statement that leaned heavily into the phrases “virtual community” and “revolutionize the world of e-sports.” It’s hard to relay this information without it sounding grim, while it’s easy to ask questions like “why are they doing this?” and “who is this for?”
Now this week’s Hater’s Zone isn’t intended to knock the concept of treadmill running. For plenty of runners—novice and experienced—it’s an essential tool that enables safer or more convenient training. But for the majority of those runners slogging away on the ‘mill, it’s probably not their first choice of training venue. The various knock-on effects of going for a run outdoors (seeing cool stuff, breathing fresh air, chatting with a friend) are ultimately the elements of our sport that wind up romanticized and centered as why we run. While it’s possible to experience a variation of those themes—you can watch a movie; turn on the air purifier in your basement; text that same friend—while trotting along in place, that visual probably doesn’t inspire you to lace up the trainers. Heck, we’re not even necessarily against the idea of treadmill racing—the virtual stationary bike race scene is, for better or worse, a thriving one—but is this the best use of World Athletics’s time and energy?
Professional sports are about entertainment and escapism. The roar of the crowd. The scale of the venue. The unpredictable interactions between the world’s best vying for the same elusive victory. The concept of the World Championship 10,000m gold medalist running a 13:00 5k on a treadmill lacks all of that. It’s just an elite athlete mirroring a normal person’s mundane reality back to them, only better. It’d be like Joey Chestnut coming over for dinner, and unceremoniously devouring all the leftovers in your fridge in 15 seconds. It’d read more as revolting than remarkable. Impressive things tend to present way better in an impressive context.
Maybe this isn’t a pure entertainment play. Let’s take Seb Coe at his jargony word and assume World Athletics truly is trying to cultivate a virtual community. Virtual communities exist! They’re real things! Even within the world of running. Look at Strava! Look at YouTube, or even the dreaded message boards. There’s nothing wrong with a virtual community when it’s rooted in something real—communal experiences, new adventures, or seeing a world that’s not your own.
Even if most of our readers aren’t big fans of the concept of e-sports, maybe some of you are. Millions of people’s favorite pastime is watching a stranger stream themselves playing a videogame, after all. But inherent in the escapism of video games—which might feature things like aliens and gratuitous violence—is the ability to bring fantasy to life. Simply approximating something very achievable indoors, like running a 5k, doesn’t exactly boggle the imagination.
Sure, there’s some precedent in cycling and rowing for mildly successful virtual racing events, but there’s no precedent for professional, championship-style e-racing to move the needle against, y’know, actual sports. When Zwift is putting up comparable viewing numbers to the Tour de France, maybe it’s worth revisiting. Until then, this announcement lands as both an attempt at a cynical cash grab and a classic case of a governing body spending a lot of resources on trying to magick a new trend into existence rather than improving its existing product.
If the problem is that we need new, exciting ideas to make running cool, why don’t we instead take on other parts of our sport that could theoretically be packaged into something more interesting for fans and fun for athletes, like adapting the increasingly popular trend of “unsactioned” underground races for high levels. Why not host a race from one side of Paris to the other with no official course? Or a Speed Project-style relay featuring Japan’s best Ekiden runners against a European all-star squad? If for no other reason than visuals, wouldn’t it be neater to watch a small field of professional athletes dart around a bustling cityscape while partaking in some high-speed urban orienteering?
Heck, you could even take the exact premise of the treadmill championship and simply take it outside. In the early days of the pandemic in 2020, race cancellations and social-distancing requirements forced the running community to get creative with its competitive outlets, leading to new races like Trials of Miles’s “Survival of the Fastest” bracket. What if every country got to send a team to a road 5k course of its own choosing and time-trial against every other nation with the added challenge of designing the fastest possible loop? Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Yared Nuguse basically raced head-to-head on opposite sides of the Atlantic with their respective indoor mile world records earlier this year—why not make a challenge like that official?
Creativity and innovation are good for the sport. But change for its own sake can be wasteful and no more interesting than the status quo. If we’re going to introduce a whole new “World Championship” format, let’s invest the thoughtfulness needed to get it right, not just get it out there.
More News From The Track And Field World 📰
– Call it the luck of the Irish, or maybe call it a world-class sprinter being displeased with the support he received from Athletics South Africa. Either way, 9.86 100m man Benji Richardson (born in Dublin and raised in South Africa) has put in for an allegiance change and will be eligible to represent Ireland in time for the 2027 World Championships.
– The Valencia Half was predictably loaded with impressive performances, but here’s the TL;DR: Yomif Kejelcha (58:02) and Agnes Ngetich (1:03:08) repeated as champions; Andreas Almgren (58:41) established a new European record; American Emma Grace Hurley cracked the top-10 (1:08:02 for sixth); and Adriaan Wildschutt (59:13) of NAZ Elite enjoyed a solid debut at the distance.
– Still in progress when last week’s newsletter hit inboxes, we can now share the winner of the Big’s Backyard Ultra: Phil Gore clocked 475 miles to claim victory in the men’s race, while Sarah Perry’s 395.83 miles were more than enough to secure the win in the women’s. That’s 4+ days of running 4.167 miles every hour, on the hour. Woof.
– At the Javelina Hundred… sigh… the Javelina Jundred, Tara Dower lopped half an hour off the course record, covering the 100 miles in 13:31:47—8:07 pace!—and Will Murray also set a course record (12:10:12), albeit in not quite as dramatic fashion.
– While it technically covers more than just the marathon, World Athletics is narrowing down its top road racers just like we are, and announcing its nominees for Out-of-Stadium Athlete of the Year this week.
– In a very roundabout way, Jakob Ingebrigtsen had his tonsils removed in service of his stated objectives for the rest of his career: breaking the 1500m, mile, and 5000m world records.
– The No. 1-ranked men’s cross country program in the NCAA, Iowa State, appears to be facing—in the most PR-speak imaginable—internal difficulties. The university’s athletic department has confirmed the suspension of multiple athletes for violating team rules. That’s not great timing with conference championships set to take place around the country this Friday and Saturday.
– Aussie Olympian, longtime Boulder stalwart, and beloved podcast host Morgan McDonald has announced his departure from On Athletic Club after four years with the group.
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