M75-79: Dennis Herman Wins It in the Boston Heat

• Dennis Herman (78, Mashpee, MA) took the M75-79 title in 52:08 — an 8:23/mi average on a sweltering 87°F morning with 18 mph winds.
• Stephen Schlicting and David Ritchie separated by just 44 seconds at the line (56:18 vs. 57:02), making 2nd and 3rd the closest battle of the group.
• Amos Woodward was the strongest mover in the back half, climbing from 2,325th to 2,249th among men between the 5K and the finish.
• Thirteen men finished in M75-79, with times ranging from 52:08 to 2:00:20 — a span of more than an hour.

Dennis Herman set the tone from the gun and never let it go. Running 6.2 miles through Boston in 87-degree heat with humidity pushing 66%, Herman averaged 8:23 per mile — a clip that held up well enough to win the M75-79 group comfortably. His strongest segment came in the final push from 8K to the finish, where he posted the 1,377th-fastest split among all men in that stretch, moving up from 1,444th to 1,422nd in the men's field. At 78, he was the oldest of the top four finishers and ran like it was beside the point.

Behind him, the race for the podium was genuinely tight. Schlicting (75, Pembroke) and Ritchie (77, Hampton, NH) were separated by just 44 seconds across 10 kilometers — roughly 7 seconds per mile. Schlicting's best relative work came on the 5K-to-8K segment, while Ritchie found another gear late, climbing back through the men's field in the final 2K. Woodward (75, Auburn, ME) ran a steady race to take 4th, also moving up over the second half. Bob Chase (78) rounded out the top five in 1:01:41.

The back half of the field spread out considerably, as the heat took its toll. Don Grimes (79, Lantana, TX) led the second group home in 1:06:20, with John Fitzgerald, Larry Williamson, and Richard Young all finishing between 1:09 and 1:22. Tom Martin of Hamilton, MA — one of the two 79-year-olds in the group — crossed in 2:00:20, completing the course and earning every second of it on a genuinely brutal race day.