NYRR Editors’ Best of the Blog 2025

Gordon Bakoulis and Stephanie Loleng at the 2024 Mastercard New York Mini 10K.

Every year we—the NYRR editorial team made up of Editorial Director Gordon Bakoulis and Editorial and Content Lead Stephanie Loleng—reflect on the blog posts that we loved for one reason or another. This year, we decided to share our favorites with all of you! Check out our top picks for 2025 and the reasons why we chose them. We hope you enjoy reading these as much as we enjoyed editing them!

Gordon: Running Through Grief: Finding Mindfulness Through Movement, May 6 Kristina Lopez

Kristina Lopez leading meditation sessions at the NYRR Mindful 5K Zen Zone.

Kristina is part of our marketing team at NYRR and also a certified mindfulness and meditation teacher who leads meditation sessions at our races. In this deeply personal blog post, she recounts how running and meditation helped her while she cared for her grandmother during the pandemic, and continued to ground her after her grandmother passed away in 2024.

“Grief changes you. For me, running became the thread that reminded me to give myself grace during a time of loss,” Kristina writes, adding that, “my meditation practice became a source of refuge.” This beautiful story of love, loss, and resilience touched me to the core.

Stephanie: 2025 TCS New York City Marathon Through the Eyes of NYRR Team for Climate Ambassador Tina Muir, November 17 Tina Muir

Tina Muir at the finish of the TCS New York City Marathon.

I’ve talked to Tina several times about her passion for sustainability and running, so when she agreed to write something for the blog about running this year’s TCS New York City Marathon as the NYRR Team for Climate ambassador, I was thrilled! Her work providing expert advice to race organizers about how to make events more sustainable is remarkable, and it shows through her passion for building community at races like ours.

Tina writes, “Running across the Verrazzano Bridge with other runners who understood the significance of what we were doing was a beautiful thing. We ran with gratitude, joy, and love for the streets we were about to run on, as well as our bodies for taking us towards our own finish lines.”

Gordon: It Took Me Five Years to Realize Nutrition Matters!, February 21 Victoria Fortune

Victoria Fortune in Prospect Park.

A member of NYRR Contributors Circle, Victoria had told us about the severe fatigue and painful cramping she suffered at the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon. Determined to fare better at this year’s Tokyo Marathon, she consulted with a nutritionist—and what a difference it made!

I love Victoria’s humility and candor—as the headline says, it took her a LONG time to get her fueling right in training and on race day—and her willingness to try new things. This is a super helpful blog post for any runner, with detailed advice from Farah Khan, MS, RD, CDN. (You can find out how Victoria’s Tokyo Marathon went here.)

Stephanie: Hope Pinsonault Appreciates the Lands She Runs On and Showing Up as Herself, November 5 Stephanie Loleng

Hope Pinsonault holding up a Native Women Run banner at the 2025 Boston Marathon.

Hope is the social media specialist at NYRR and she's not only a colleague but a friend who has spoken to me about her work with Native Women Runand her appreciation of her culture. We were looking to spotlight a Native runner for November to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, and I immediately thought to ask Hope for a recommendation before realizing that actually, she would be the best person to be featured on the blog.

She said she watched her dad run marathons when she was a kid and those moments stuck with her.

“He always encouraged us to take on endurance running and said that we’d be good at it since we’re Native. Once I hit 5th grade and we had a cross country team at my school, I signed up and immediately fell in love with everything about the sport,” Hope said.

Gordon: Queer Joy at the Pride Run and Year-Round, August 6 J Solle

J Solle at the 2025 Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run.

J Solle, the director of the Front Runners New York LGBT Pride Run, joined NYRR Contributors Circle this year. Their first blog post recounted their running journey starting in 2021 when they moved to NYC seeking queer identity. That year’s Pride Run was their first local road race—and also the first NYRR race that included nonbinary as a gender category.

Four years and dozens of races later, J shares the joy of queer identity at the Pride Run and year-round. “There are very few places where I see a tangible reflection of my identity,” they write, “but at each race, I get to see an X next to my name.”

Stephanie: Restaurants I've Run to While Training for the 2025 TCS New York City Marathon (Part 1), August 28 David Paradela

David Paradela with his friends at the Red Hook Lobster Pound.

David works is the Internal communication associate for NYRR and when he told me that while training for the Berlin Marathon in 2024, he’d pick a restaurant to run to as motivation to get his miles in, I thought it would be a great idea for a blog post. He’s so good at describing food in such a visceral and personal way that I’m glad he agreed to write about his experience. Once you read this, you’ll want to try at least one of these places he recommends. There's also a part 2 with even more restaurant recommendations!

David writes, “From world class pastries in Long Island City to Chino Latino fare on the Upper West Side, there’s no city in the world that eats (and runs) like New York.”

Gordon: Breaking Up with Instagram, April 2 Carolyn Su

Carolyn Su in front of a mural titled "Breathe Life" in Boston.

Who doesn’t have a love/hate relationship with social media these days? Contributors Circle member Carolyn Su shares how the push/pull became almost impossible for her as a runner and diversity advocate and how stepping back from Instagram and other platforms has helped her rediscover joy.

“I’ve lost a lot of internet followers,” she wrote. “At the same time, I’ve found myself and gained a much greater, fuller sense of what it means to be alive...That’s a win in my books!” Agreed.

Stephanie: At 79, Mildred Baker Runs Her First Half Marathon, February 26 NYRR Staff

NYRR Strider Mildred Baker at the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half.

Mildred Baker is so dedicated to her NYRR Striders community, and it shows in how she’s progressed throughout the years. She’s run 22 NYRR races in the past two years and at 79-years-old she ran her first half marathon at the United Airlines NYC Half in March 2025. This blog post summarizes her walking and running journey and links to an emotional video of her story.

Gordon: Meb’s Tips for Running 2025 TCS New York City Marathon, July 31 Meb Keflezighi

2024 TCS New York City Marathon finishers.

I’ve run the New York City Marathon a few times, but I still learned so much as the great Meb Keflezighi shared insights, memories, and reflections from his 12 finishes. What I love most about this blog post, which goes mile-by-mile through the course, is that Meb shares as much about his struggles as about his epic performances, including his victory in 2009.
There’s loads of practical advice, too, such as this nugget: “The Queensboro Bridge, without spectators, is a good place to repeat positive mantras. Talk to yourself, say, ‘I am ready, I’m willing, let’s see what can happen.’”

Stephanie: You vs. You: A Fresh Take on Goal-Setting, January 3 Roberto Mandje

Runners at the 2024 NYRR Manhattan 10K.

NYRR Coach Roberto has not only worked for New York Road Runners for many years but was also a professional runner from 2004 to 2016, even competing at the 1,500 meters event at the 2004 Olympics! He’s paced many people at NYRR races, including Lil Nas X at the United Airlines NYC Half last year, and continues to inspire and support runners. This blog post written at the beginning of this year is all about goal setting and how it’s “You vs. You.”

One piece of advice that resonated with me was to concentrate on what you can control. He writes, “Some things will always be beyond your control, like getting into certain races through a drawing or achieving a qualifying time that’s perhaps still a bit out of reach. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim for these goals; it’s more about being aware of how much your happiness in running depends on these outcomes versus your own journey of self-discovery and improvement.”

Notable mentions:

Gordon: Bringing Justice and Positive Change to Communities Through Running, February 1 Gordon Bakoulis

To kick off Black History Month, we shared stories of two runners, Jackie Hoffman and Daryl Murphy, who are working for justice and positive change in their communities and who spoke at an event for NYRR staff to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The stories inspired me because both runners launched their efforts amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, and both continue to raise up their communities.

Stephanie: Running Together Feels Like Home for These Three Filipino American Women, May 8 Stephanie Loleng

I’ve been an NYRR Group Training coach for a couple of years now and have had the privilege to coach these three Filipino runners a few times in the past. Being Filipino myself, we bonded over our shared culture, and I just loved the story of Heidi inspiring her niece Isabella to become a runner.