F35-39 at the B.A.A. 10K: D'Amato Dominates in the Heat

• Keira D'Amato won the F35-39 age group in 31:17 (5:02/mi), holding 1st among women from wire to wire and posting the fastest women's split on the 5K–8K segment.
• Sara Vaughn (2nd, 34:38) and Desiree Linden (3rd, 34:49) were separated by just 11 seconds — and both closed hard, running the 10th- and 11th-fastest women's splits on the final 8K-to-finish stretch, respectively.
• Amy Wachler (4th, 39:13) and Shana Frank (5th, 39:41) were the top local finishers, both from the Boston area, separated by 28 seconds.
• 365 women finished in the F35-39 age group in 77°F heat with a 12 mph wind off the Boston streets.

Keira D'Amato made the F35-39 race look almost unfair. Running 5:02 per mile across 6.2 miles in oppressive late-June heat, she never relinquished her lead among the women — sitting 1st at every checkpoint — and wasn't content to just manage the gap. Her fastest women's split on the 5K–8K segment suggests she was still pressing through the meat of the course while others were managing the conditions. Her 31:17 finish was more than three minutes clear of the second-place runner in the age group.

Behind her, Sara Vaughn (34:38) and Desiree Linden (34:49) ran a race within a race. Linden, 38, from Charlevoix, MI, and Vaughn, 36, tracked each other almost identically through the early checkpoints — both sitting 12th and 13th among women respectively at every split. But the closing stretch separated them: Vaughn posted the 10th-fastest women's split from 8K to the finish, Linden the 11th-fastest. Neither could shake the other until the very end, with Vaughn edging Linden by 11 seconds.

Amy Wachler (4th, 39:13, 6:19/mi) showed some of the sharpest mid-race movement in the age group, moving from 27th to 26th among women through the 5K–8K segment before settling back to 27th at the line. Shana Frank (5th, 39:41) mirrored that pattern, climbing from 31st to 30th among women on the final stretch. Cheryl Borden of Franklin, TN rounded out the top six in 40:03, while the rest of the 365-strong field spread across a wide range — from Mallory Walker's 7th-place 43:29 to the hundreds who battled the heat all the way to the finish.