The Monday Musings Awards 2025
The most coveted gongs in the running world go to ...
And just like that it’s the final Monday Musings of the year. Looking back, I’ve personally had a good year in terms of my running. I may not have broken 18 minutes for 5K, which was my goal at the start of the year, but I had a lot of fun trying. I also set an FKT (even if it was a fairly sub-par effort), and I came third in a half marathon.
But enough about me, what were the highlights out there in the big wide world of running? I’ll do my best to remember some of the most exciting, awe-inspiring moments of 2026, as I cast my mind back through hazy memories of dot watching, infuriating marathon feeds, and the thrills and spills of the track.
I’ll have to start with the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo as, despite everything, this, to me, is still the pinnacle of the sport, where the fastest go head-to-head, in peak condition, no holds barred. And again, for the second year running, my Athlete of the Year has to be Beatrice Chebet. Not only did she set more world records, this time in the 5,000m, she cruised to the 5,000m and 10,000m double at the world championships, beating none other than Faith Kipyegon (again) in the 5,000m in a last lap burn up.
The only downside to Chebet’s brilliance - and in this she reminds me of Tirunesh Dibaba and Kenenisa Bekele, the two GOATs of long-distance track running - is that she makes it look too easy. It’s almost anti-climactic the manner in which she accelerates away from the best of the best at the end, like she’s just toying with them.
For real, edge-of-the-seat excitement there needs to be more jeopardy. Like in the women’s 800m, where Keely Hodgkinson showed she was fallible, pushing too hard too soon in the world final and being passed in dramatic fashion down the home straight by Georgia Hunter-Bell (silver) and Lilian Odira (gold). Odira’s win completed a remarkable set of victories for the Kenyan women, who claimed every single track gold medal from the 800m up to the 10,000m.
For all the difficulties Kenyan women face, living and training in a deeply patriarchal society, where domestic violence is worryingly prevalent, their ongoing brilliance is simply amazing.
On the men’s side, the racing in Tokyo was generally much closer and more unpredictable, with the combined winning margins of the men’s 1,500m, 3,000m steeplechase, 10,000m and marathon boiling down to just 0.18 seconds - that might just be the stat of the year!
