Monaco 15 was not the race of the year by the simple virtue of the fact that it was not a race at all. It was a time trial by Kiprop, and the "race for second place" by Farah. Go watch it again.
The Gladwell troll thread was, in my opinion, more impressive than Gladwell's own thread, because it demonstrated true troll mastery in drawing a famous lurker out into the open and effectively toyed with a "great thinker."