Race director Cliff Bosley felt confident the Bolder Boulder was back in its proper form last year.

The fast-paced spectacle that unfolded Monday only cemented that status.

It took a few years for Boulder’s annual Memorial Day 10K to recover from a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID pandemic, but the 2024 race drew 48,318 entrants, a total that was on par with the Bolder Boulder’s pre-pandemic levels.

This year’s race, the 45th edition of the Bolder Boulder, took that to another level. Race organizers reported 52,185 entries for Monday’s rain-speckled race, marking the 11th time the Bolder Boulder has attracted at least 50,000 entrants. It was the fifth-highest number of entrants in the race’s history, and the most since a record 54,554 signed up in 2011.

In 2022, when the race emerged from its two-year hiatus, the Bolder Boulder featured just 33,991 entrants, the first time the race dipped under 40,000 since 1997 and the lowest total since 1991, when there were 31,103 registrations. But there has been a gradual recovery since, with 40,044 entries in 2023 before jumping to over 48,000 last year.

Plus, the younger demographic among the pool of entries has Bosley confident reaching 50,000 entries will again become the norm, as it was from 2007 through 2018, when the Bolder Boulder hit that mark in 10 of 12 races.“Even last year’s numbers in the high 40s was really encouraging, for a couple of reasons,” Bosley said. “One, because we’d been there before. But also it’s a big indicator in the interest in the sport and the interest in the event. There’s a lot of people that got into running or fitness during the COVID stuff, and the Bolder Boulder becomes a target or a goal.

“What’s unique is our under-30 (years old) was around 39% of our field. So almost 40% of our field was under 30, with not quite 10% at 14 and under.”

Thanks to the cool and mostly overcast conditions, the 2025 Bolder Boulder turned into one of the fastest races in the event’s history. Kenya’s Grace Loibach Nawowuna won the women’s pro race for the second consecutive year, setting an event record with a winning time of 31 minutes, 51 seconds. Nawowuna became the first athlete to break 32 minutes in the women’s pro field and bested the previous record by 22 seconds.

Conner Mantz became the first athlete to win the men’s pro race in three consecutive years, and while he didn’t break any records, his time of 28:21 tied the sixth-fastest time in the event history. The top four finishers all cracked the top 20 times in the history of the men’s pro race.

Additionally, the cool, cloudy conditions didn’t put an inordinate dent in the number of finishers. On Tuesday, race officials said the final tally of finishers was 46,664, a number that accounted for 89% of the entrants. That figure is in line with last year (91%) and 2023 (90%).

“Sometimes people don’t show up (because of the weather), but those who do show up I think have a better experience,” said Bosley, noting that no-shows can still receive a discounted entry fee for next year. “Their times are better.”