W35-39: Obiri owns New York in 1:06:33

• Hellen Obiri, 1:06:33 (5:05/mi): Won the women's race outright and topped the W35-39 age group — her 5K→10K split was the fastest of any woman on the course.
• Susanna Sullivan, 1:09:38 (5:19/mi): Ran the 7th-fastest women's 5K→10K split, climbing from 11th to 9th among women and taking 2nd in the age group by 3:05.
• Lindsay Flanagan, 1:14:02 (5:39/mi): Held steady at 19th among women across the back half to claim 3rd in W35-39, finishing 7:29 behind Obiri.
• A deep mid-pack battle: Six finishers — 14th through 19th in the age group — all crossed between 1:24:32 and 1:24:59, a 27-second window across six runners.

Hellen Obiri turned the 2026 United Airlines NYC Half into a statement. Running at 5:05 per mile through a crisp 40°F morning from Prospect Park to Central Park, the 36-year-old from Boulder led the women's race wire to wire — her gender place never wavered from 1st at any checkpoint — and posted the fastest 5K→10K split among all women. Her 1:06:33 didn't just top the W35-39 age group; it topped every woman on the course.

Behind her, Susanna Sullivan was the age group's most aggressive mover. The 35-year-old from Reston ran the 7th-fastest women's 5K→10K split in the field, using that stretch to climb from 11th to 9th among women and pull clear of the W35-39 chase pack. Her 1:09:38 — a 5:19/mi average — secured a comfortable 2nd-place finish in the age group, more than three minutes ahead of Lindsay Flanagan. Flanagan, also 35 and based in Superior, CO, ran a measured race at 5:39/mi, holding 19th among women from the 10K mark onward to take 3rd in 1:14:02.

The real drama in the W35-39 field unfolded around spots 14 through 19, where Elizabeth Swierzbinski (1:24:32), Ana Orellana (1:24:33), Jing Zhang-Insel (1:24:43), Sarah Schultz (1:24:47), Amy Wachler (1:24:58), and Rachel Mitchell (1:24:59) were separated by just 27 seconds across six finishers. In a 2,037-woman age group that stretched deep into the afternoon, that kind of compression in the middle of the standings is a race of its own.