Men's Race: Will Norris Storms Home to Win Twin Cities

• Will Norris, 2:15:39 (5:10/mi): Ran as far back as 4th before seizing the lead after 20K and never relinquishing it — his fastest men's split on the 15K→20K stretch was the decisive move.
• Tesfu Tewelde, 2:16:04 (5:11/mi): Led or co-led for much of the first half with the fastest men's split on the 5K→10K segment, but faded from 1st to 2nd after the midpoint — 25 seconds back at the finish.
• Asefa Bekele's mid-race surge: Running out of Addis Ababa, Bekele rocketed from 5th to 2nd between 10K and 15K — posting the fastest men's split on that stretch — but couldn't hold it, slipping to 5th by the finish in 2:20:23.
• A deep men's field of 4,157 finishers, with 17 men breaking 2:40 and the top-20 spread spanning just over 23 minutes from Norris's winning 2:15:39 to Max Larson's 2:38:57.

The men's race at the 2025 Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon — running point-to-point from Minneapolis to Saint Paul — was a tactical chess match through the early miles, with Tesfu Tewelde of Flagstaff setting the tone by blazing the fastest men's split on the 5K→10K segment and sitting atop the men's field from the gun. Benard Kipkemoi Rotich of Grand Prairie stayed close, posting the 2nd-fastest split on that same early stretch to hold 3rd, while Will Norris — who would ultimately win the whole thing — was already as far back as 4th.

The race's pivotal chapter came between 15K and 20K. Norris, running for Charlottesville, Virginia, produced the fastest men's split on that segment, charging from 4th all the way to the lead. It was the kind of surge that changes everything: once he moved to the front, he never looked back, holding 1st through every checkpoint to the finish. Meanwhile, Asefa Bekele authored the race's most dramatic mid-race swing — climbing from 5th all the way to 2nd between 10K and 15K on the strength of the fastest men's split on that stretch — before gradually fading back to 5th in 2:20:23.

Norris crossed in 2:15:39 at 5:10/mi, with Tewelde 25 seconds behind in 2:16:04 and Rotich a further 1:31 back in 2:17:35. Bradley Makuvire of Horizon City, Texas — who posted the fastest men's split on the first half — finished a strong 4th in 2:20:13, just 10 seconds ahead of Bekele. Blake Buysse (2:21:35) and Thomas Graham (2:25:12) rounded out the top seven in a men's race that, despite warm and breezy conditions at 69°F with 17 mph winds, produced a genuinely competitive front end and a winner who earned it the hard way — from behind.