HISTORY MADE: See The 2025 Grandma’s Marathon Recap + Photo Gallery

The 2025 running of Grandma's Marathon and the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in the Duluth area was forced to delay race starts by half an hour on Saturday morning because of some strong overnight thunderstorms.

After the delay, the race got off to a humid start, with a layer of clouds and fog helping to keep things a little cooler before they burned off later during the full marathon.

This year's races all sold out in record time, with a full slate of participants in both the elite and citizen ranks ready to tackle the course. One of the races ended with a couple of big notes in the history of the event.

Among those historic notes were the number of finishers. This year's race weekend set an all-time record with over 18,000 total finishers between the weekend's three events. Grandma's Marathon had 7,530 finishers, the second largest number since 2024, while the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon had 8,220 finishers, which is just over 300 more than the previous high mark set in 2016.

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon (Men's)

Murphy Smith, meanwhile, emerged from a wide-open field on the men’s side to win in his first-ever appearance in Duluth. Just 10 days ago, he was representing Navy in the 10,000-meters in the NCAA Championships, where he finished 14th.

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Smith, 22, finished in 1:02:49 and was more than a minute ahead of runner-up Mohammed Bati. He is the event’s youngest men’s champion since 19-year-old John Klecker won in 2003.

You can see the full results here.

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon (Women's)

Last year's winner Annie Frisbie repeated as the winner of the women's half marathon, narrowly beating her fellow Minnesota Distance Elite teammate Dakotah Popehn by 8 seconds with a winning time of 1:09:05.

She becomes only the third woman to have multiple wins in the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, joining Kelly Keeler and Debra Gormley, who each have three.

You can see the full results here.

Grandma's Marathon (Men's Wheelchair)

Luis Francisco Sanclemente raced to his second straight victory in the Grandma's Men's Wheelchair race. The 37-year-old bested five-time champion Aaron Pike with a time of 1:26:02. He becomes the eighth men's wheelchair participant to have won multiple titles in the Duluth race.

You can see the full results here.

Grandma's Marathon (Women's Wheelchair)

Vanessa Cristina de Souza claims her first victory in her first-ever Grandma's Marathon. She posted a personal record time of 1:39:55 to claim this victory, beating runner-up Linden Williamson, who also set a new personal best with a time of 1:49:29.

You can see the full results here.

Grandma's Marathon (Men's)

Joel Reichow made history in a few different ways with his win in the 2025 Grandma's Marathon. With his victory, he became both the first American and Minnesota native to win Grandma’s Marathon since Chris Raabe did so in 2009. This was his first attempt at the full marathon in Duluth, and he won!

In addition, Marathon PR director Zach Schneider said at the finish line that Reichow is the first person to have won both the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon (he did so in 2023) and now Grandma's Marathon. He did so with a time of 2:11:58.

You can see the full results here.

Grandma's Marathon (Women's)

Lilian Chebii claims the women's title in the full marathon, doing so in her first-ever appearance in Duluth and in only her second full marathon in her career. Her winning time of 2:25:14 was more than three minutes faster than her previous personal best in a marathon competition.

She becomes the first Kenyan woman to win in Duluth since Hellen Jepkurgat in 2017.

You can see the full results here.

Here is a gallery from the finish line and along the race course, highlighting not only the elite winners, but a number of other participants from Saturday.