It was a busy weekend of running with the track season coming to a close and the road and cross country seasons kicking off!

International

The inaugural ATHLOS NYC event took place on Thursday the 26th of September. This new event has been set up to promote women’s sport through bringing together the world’s best female athletes “for an electrifying night of grace, speed and sound”. This event is a celebration of women’s sport with the biggest prize offering in the history of women’s track-only events, innovative bibs designed specifically to fit a woman’s frame, and walk out songs personalised to each athlete to set the stage for an unforgettable competition.

The Olympic and World Champion, Faith Kipyegon, comfortably won the 1500m in 4:04.79 to maintain a three year unbeaten streak in the event. Tsige Duguma showed her strength to win the 800m beating the World Champion Mary Moraa in a quick 1:57.43. Jasmine Camacho-Quinn continued her strong post-Olympics form to win the 100m hurdles in 12.36.

Marileidy Paulino arguably had the performance of the evening clocking 49.59 in the 400m despite it being the end of September. Marie-Josée Ta Lou-Smith continues to impress at 35 years old by winning the 100m in 10.98. Brittany Brown caused one of the upsets of the evening clocking 22.18 and beating the Olympic Champion, Gabby Thomas, in the 200m.

This innovative new competition looks a great addition to the athletics calendar that will hopefully inspire the next generation of female athletes.

The Berlin Marathon kicked of the autumn marathon season and delivered quick times as usual. Ethiopia dominated with Tigist Ketema and Milkesa Mengesha winning in 2:03:17 and 2:16:42. The top four in the women’s race and three of the top five in the men’s race were all Ethiopian.

The former World Cross Country Junior Champion Milkesa Mengesha left it late to pull away from Cybrian Kotut and win by 7 seconds. The race started fast with the men passing 5km in 14:25, 10km in 28:42 and the half in 60:57. A group of nine men passed 35km together but this broke over the final 7km with some fading as badly as dropping to 13th place.

From 800m to marathon. Tigist Ketema started her career winning medals on the track but has recently moved to the roads and it is paying off. She ran the quickest debut marathon of all time for a woman earlier this year to win in Dubai. Ketema passed 10km in 32:15 and the half in 67:53 before pulling away to finish over four minutes ahead of the rest of the field.

From a British perspective our athletes impressed. Calli Haugher-Thackery put her disappointment of her Paris Olympics DNF behind her to improve her PB by almost a minute and finish 7th overall clocking 2:21:24. Phily Bowden took an incredible three and a half minutes off her PB by running 2:25:47 which puts her Number 9 on the British all-time rankings.

Marathon running is becoming extremely popular as we saw by the number of entries into the London Marathon ballot earlier this year. The same was true for the Boston Marathon. The 2025 edition received a record-breaking 36,393 applications with only 24,069 being accepted. The BAA (Boston Athletic Association) have announced that they are tightening their qualifying standards for the 2026 edition due to the increase in demand for places.

National

Jonny Mellor is well on track towards the New York Marathon taking the win at the Barclays Knutsford 10k in 29:43 after a 10k tempo before the race. The top women were only separated by seconds with Martha Tibbot edging out Lianne Milner by 3 seconds to take the victory.

Andrew Heyes always seems to be in solid shape and took the win at the Sheffield Mutual Sheffield 10k in 29:44. Martha Hanby won the women’s race in 39:31.

The Windsor Half Marathon proved a strong contest with Jonathan Escalante-Phillips winning in 1:06:00 and just edging out Tewelde Menges in 1:06:11. Alex Milne finished third in 1:07:47. The women’s podium was Lesley Locks (1:24:29), Catherine O’Connor (1:25:02) and Holly Anderson (1:25:28).

The iconic Robin Hood Half Marathon was won by David Bishop in 1:08:18 with Olivia Bates clocking 1:19:22 to win the women’s event.

In the Ealing Half Marathon John Fielding ran away from the field to clock 1:07:54 and Hattie Freeman comfortably won the women’s race in 1:15:26.

A unique event took place in Shrewsbury in the Metric Half Marathon event which saw James Lewis home first in 46:40 with Sasha Hughes-Stanton winning the women’s race in 56:50. The Half Marathon was won by Sam Juson (1:11:45) and Eleanor Pitcher (1:22:49).

Up in Scotland Scott Stirling ran a solid 30:01 to win the Linlithgow 10k and Morag Millar finished in a respectable 34:37 to top the women’s race.

Closer to home the South West saw one of its last track events of the season with Exeter’s open 3k and mile races. And the Taunton 10k was won by Dillon Millard in 32:43 and Nicole Avery in 39:17 respectively.