M35-39: Moen Dominates, Rupp Delivers a Masterclass in the 2s

• Sondre Nordstad Moen wins M35-39 in 1:02:41 (4:47/mi), nearly two minutes clear of the field in a group of 2,452 finishers.
• Galen Rupp takes 2nd in 1:04:28 (4:55/mi), the only other man in the age group to break 1:05.
• Abelino Alatorre claims 3rd in 1:11:29 — a full 7:01 behind Rupp, but he posted the 55th-fastest split in the field on the 10K–15K segment to hold off a late charge.
• Places 7 through 11 finished within nine seconds of each other (1:13:47 to 1:13:56), making that stretch the tightest cluster of the afternoon.

The story at the top of M35-39 was never really a race — it was a showcase. Sondre Nordstad Moen, 35, running out of Oslo, crossed in 1:02:41 at a 4:47/mi clip and was never seriously threatened. He held his men's standing steady from the opening gun, and his 5K–10K split ranked 18th-fastest among all men in the race — a reminder that his pace wasn't just dominant within this age group, it was elite by any measure on the course that morning.

Galen Rupp, racing at 39 out of Portland, was the only man in M35-39 who could even glimpse Moen's horizon. His 1:04:28 (4:55/mi) was a composed, consistent effort — he moved from 26th among men at the 5K to 25th by the halfway point and held that position all the way to the finish. The 1:47 gap to Moen was decisive, but Rupp's race was its own story: a 39-year-old running sub-1:05 on a cold March morning in New York.

Then came a sizeable gap to the podium's third step. Abelino Alatorre of the Bronx closed in 1:11:29, helped along by the 55th-fastest split in the field on the 10K–15K stretch — a surge that let him pull clear of Matthias Seele (4th, 1:12:01) and Yohann Laurent (5th, 1:13:03). Laurent had his own moment of momentum, posting the 69th-fastest split in the field on the 15K–20K leg to climb from 122nd among men to 102nd, finishing in 1:13:03 just eight seconds ahead of Daniel Granton (6th, 1:13:11).

The real drama of the mid-pack played out between places 7 and 11, where Christian Ledezma Cisneros (1:13:47), Adrian Cabnal Chen (1:13:50), Nick Grinlinton (1:13:53), Andre Borgen (1:13:53), and Ryan Mulligan (1:13:56) were separated by a combined nine seconds across five finishers — tight enough that any one of them could have reshuffled the order with one stronger final mile.