B.A.A. 10K F65-69: Donnelly dominates in Boston heat

• Judith Donnelly won the F65-69 age group in 56:39 (9:07/mi) — nearly 5 minutes clear of second place.
• The podium was tight from 2nd through 4th: Ann Larson (1:01:37), Rita Cramer (1:02:34), and Lois Jeanne Pustell (1:02:42) — separated by just 65 seconds.
• Cramer ran the 1,314th-fastest women's split on the 5K–8K stretch, edging Pustell's 1,544th on that same segment — a key reason she held off Pustell for third despite Pustell's stronger early position.
• All 32 finishers in the F65-69 group crossed the line on a sweltering 85°F morning in Boston — no small feat.

Judith Donnelly of Wellesley made this one look almost easy. Her 56:39 — a 9:07-per-mile clip through Boston's June heat — put her in a class of her own in the F65-69 field, with a margin of victory that was never really in doubt. Her gender-place tracking tells an interesting story, though: she drifted from 706th to 795th among all women across the back half of the race, suggesting the heat was a factor for everyone, including the leader. Still, no one in her age group came close.

Behind Donnelly, the real drama played out in a three-way battle for the podium. Ann Larson (Amesbury, MA) held second comfortably at 1:01:37, but Rita Cramer and Lois Jeanne Pustell were locked in a genuine fight for third. Cramer had started the race much further back in the women's field — 1,585th — and steadily worked her way forward to finish 1,461st, a notable climb. Pustell went the opposite direction, sliding from 1,210th at the 5K mark to 1,484th by the finish, and her slower 5K–8K split sealed it: Cramer crossed in 1:02:34, Pustell in 1:02:42, an eight-second gap that felt much wider by the end.

Fifth through eighth place — Sinthy Kounlasa, Marcia Fowler, Mary Hebert, and Joan Sarles — were bunched between 1:04:05 and 1:05:22, a competitive cluster separated by just 77 seconds. Sarles, at 69 the oldest finisher in the top eight, rounded out a strong upper tier. With temperatures pushing 85°F and humidity at 64%, every one of these 32 women earned their finish on a genuinely tough morning along the Charles.