M50-59 at American River 50: Henriquez Dominates, Bricca Holds Off a Late Charge

• Selvin Henriquez won M50-59 in 8:14:01 (9:53/mi), finishing 3rd among the men overall — more than 1:20:00 clear of 2nd place.
• Greg Bricca edged Ofer Kadar for 2nd by 22:27, aided by the 3rd-fastest men's split on the Last Gasp→Finish stretch.
• Ofer Kadar was the group's biggest mover in the back half, climbing from 22nd to 14th among men between the midpoint and the finish.
• Places 5 and 6 — Tracy Plaster and Grant Carboni — finished just 28 seconds apart after 50 miles of racing.

Selvin Henriquez turned the M50-59 race into a solo statement. Running 9:53 per mile across 50 miles in the California foothills, the 50-year-old from El Sobrante held 3rd place among all men from the earliest checkpoint through the tape — a position he never relinquished. His winning margin of over 80 minutes over the rest of the age group wasn't a late surge; it was a sustained, metronomic performance that made the rest of the field feel like they were racing for second.

And second was genuinely contested. Greg Bricca of El Dorado Hills ran a patient race, sitting 11th among men early before climbing to 9th by mid-race. He faded slightly to 12th by the penultimate checkpoint but closed hard, posting the 3rd-fastest split on the Last Gasp-to-Finish leg to secure 2nd in M50-59 in 9:34:05. Ofer Kadar of Sunnyvale was even more aggressive in the second half — he was still 22nd among men at Rattlesnake Bar but stormed home to finish 14th overall among men, crossing in 9:56:32. The 22-minute gap between them at the line belies how much ground Kadar made up when it mattered.

Further back, the race delivered one of its tightest finishes in the 5th-place battle. Tracy Plaster and Grant Carboni both crossed in 11:22 — Plaster at 11:22:13 and Carboni at 11:22:41, just 28 seconds separating them after more than eleven hours on the trail. Plaster had been as far back as 49th among men early in the race before working his way to 35th by the finish. The final five finishers — Charley Jones through Murugan Balasubramanian — all came home between 13:10 and 13:30, rounding out a full 16-finisher group on a clear, mild April day in Auburn.