W25-29 at the 2026 NYC Half: Van Es edges Belayneh by one second in a 5:13 showdown

• Diane Van Es, 1st in W25-29 (1:08:21) — won it with the 5th-fastest women's split on the 15K–20K stretch, climbing from 6th to 4th among women on that surge before holding on to the tape.
• Fentaye Belayneh, 2nd (1:08:22) — one second back, and she had the 3rd-fastest women's split from 10K–15K; the gap at the finish was razor-thin, but Van Es had already done the decisive damage a segment earlier.
• Amanda Vestri, 3rd (1:09:22), and Annie Frisbie, 4th (1:09:25) — separated by just three seconds, with Vestri posting the 7th-fastest women's split on 15K–20K and Frisbie the 8th-fastest over the second half.
• Emily Venters, 5th (1:09:46) — the biggest mover in the top ten, advancing from 13th among women at the 10K mark all the way to 10th by the finish, powered by the 6th-fastest women's split on the second half.

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In crisp 40°F conditions from Prospect Park to Central Park, the W25-29 group produced one of the tightest finishes of the day at the front. Diane Van Es (1:08:21, 5:13/mi) held off Fentaye Belayneh (1:08:22, 5:13/mi) by a single second — identical displayed pace, but Van Es's 15K–20K surge told the story. She moved from 6th to 4th among women on that segment, and Belayneh, despite running the 3rd-fastest women's split between 10K and 15K, couldn't quite close the gap in the final kilometers.

Behind them, the battle for the podium's third step was its own race. Amanda Vestri (1:09:22) and Annie Frisbie (1:09:25) were separated by three seconds after 13.1 miles, both running sub-5:18 pace. Vestri's 7th-fastest women's split on the 15K–20K segment helped her hold third, while Frisbie's 8th-fastest second-half split was enough to secure fourth but not to catch her. Konstanze Klosterhalfen rounded out the top six in 1:10:04 (5:21/mi), and Agnes Ngetich took 7th in 1:10:25 (5:22/mi), making the top seven a genuinely elite cluster.

The most compelling sub-plot belonged to Emily Venters. Sitting 13th among women at the halfway point, she ran the 6th-fastest women's split over the back half of the course and finished 5th in W25-29 in 1:09:46 — a 5:19/mi average that understates how much faster she ran when it mattered most. In a 3,737-finisher age group, the front of the W25-29 field was a race within the race, and one second decided it all.