F30-34: Lokedi surges to the front and holds it home

• Sharon Lokedi, 31:39 — won the F30-34 age group, posting the fastest women's split on the 5K–8K stretch to seal the victory.
• Three seconds back: Emily Sisson finished in 31:42, just three seconds off Lokedi's winning time — the closest gap on the podium.
• Podium gap widens: Maggie Montoya rounded out the top three in 32:04, with Sheila Chepkirui (32:17) and Erika Kemp (32:32) completing a tight top five.
• 771 finishers completed the F30-34 age group on a brutal 93°F day in Boston.

Sharon Lokedi came into the 5K checkpoint sitting 4th among the women, but she wasn't done moving. She hammered the 5K–8K segment with the fastest women's split in that stretch, vaulting all the way to 1st among women — a position she never relinquished. Her 31:39 finish at a 5:06/mi clip, on a day when Boston's heat had teeth, was the performance of the F30-34 age group.

Emily Sisson gave her everything she had. Running at the same 5:06/mi average, Sisson posted the 3rd-fastest women's split on the 5K–8K leg herself, climbing from 5th to 3rd among women by that checkpoint and holding there. But Lokedi's surge on that same segment was simply unanswerable — three seconds separated them at the finish line, a margin that reflects just how close this race was at the front. Maggie Montoya made her own move late, recording the 4th-fastest women's split on the 8K-to-finish leg to lock up 3rd in 32:04.

Sheila Chepkirui had run herself into 3rd among women through the early going but faded to 7th by the finish, crossing in 32:17. Erika Kemp, the Allston local, was steady throughout — 8th among women at 5K and 9th at the finish — earning 5th in the age group in 32:32. Behind the top five, Mercy Cherono (32:59) and Joan Chelimo Melly (33:30) kept the pressure on through the back half of the field, with Molly Bookmyer of Columbus rounding out the top eight in 33:43. All of it played out under a punishing 93-degree sky — making every second of those splits earned the hard way.