Masters Men 50K: Preston Holds Off Fortin in a Front-Running Duel

• Scott Preston (1st, 3:19:20) ran the fastest men's split on the 5K→10K segment and led the men's field for most of the race, finishing at a 6:25/mi average across 31 miles.
• Adam Fortin (2nd, 3:26:19) countered with the fastest men's split on the 10K→15K segment — and even briefly held the men's lead at the midpoint — but ultimately finished 6:59 behind Preston.
• Raul Galvan (3rd, 4:18:40) was the top mover in the Masters Men field, climbing from 16th among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 9th, posting the 7th-fastest men's split on the 5K→10K segment along the way.
• A 57-man Masters Men field completed the 50K ultra in conditions that were deceptively taxing: 57°F and misty sounds benign, but 95% humidity at 6:25/mi is a different story.

The real headline in the Masters Men race was the back-and-forth between Scott Preston and Adam Fortin. Preston, 43, from Midlothian, TX, set the early tone with the fastest men's split between 5K and 10K, and he held the men's lead through the opening miles. But Fortin, also 43, out of Rogers, AR, wasn't content to follow — he surged between 10K and 15K with the fastest men's split on that segment and seized the men's lead briefly at that stage of the race. It was a genuine lead change at pace, not a statistical quirk. Ultimately, Preston reasserted himself and never relinquished the top spot again, crossing the finish line in 3:19:20 to Fortin's 3:26:19 — nearly a seven-minute gap that reflects how decisively Preston closed the deal in the back half.

Behind the top two, the next wave of Masters Men ran an entirely different race. Raul Galvan, 42, from Grapevine, TX, was the field's most notable climber — starting 16th among men and grinding his way up to finish 3rd in the Masters Men field in 4:18:40 at 8:20/mi. Cal Nesmith, 40, from Denver, CO, rounded out the podium in 4th at 4:25:59, and Michael Megibben, 49, of Simpsonville, KY — the oldest man in the top five — came in 5th at 4:37:47 with the 15th-fastest men's split on the late 38K→43.6K segment, showing he had legs left when many others were fading. Rick Nguyen (6th, 4:42:40) and a tight cluster of Dallas-area runners — Steffen Springborn (7th, 4:49:10), Allen Pham (8th, 4:49:12), and Atul Kumar (9th, 4:49:48) — finished within a minute of each other, making for one of the more competitive mid-pack battles of the day.