Men's Marathon: Fahy Hunts Down the Field in a Bitter Dallas Winter

• Steven Fahy, 2:23:45 — won the men's race at 5:29/mi, surging from 17th at the first checkpoint to 1st by the finish, with the fastest men's split from 36K to the line.
• Casey Novelo, 2:24:43 — led the men's race from checkpoint 6 through checkpoint 8 before Fahy ran him down; Novelo's 2nd-fastest men's second-half split kept him within 58 seconds for 2nd.
• Cameron Nocton, 21, and Richard Bower, 22 — both from Richmond, IN — finished 4th (2:27:25) and 5th (2:27:30), just 5 seconds apart, with Nocton posting the 2nd-fastest 36K-to-finish split in the men's field.
• Albert Marban, 2:33:09 — returns to the BMW Dallas Marathon podium area, improving on his 3rd-place finish here in 2024 (2:35:59) to land 15th in a far deeper men's field.

Thirty-one degrees, a 24-mph wind, and a field of 2,685 men — and Steven Fahy, 29, from Dallas, turned it into a comeback story for the ages. He was 17th among men at the first checkpoint, methodically working his way forward through checkpoints 2 through 5, then locked into 3rd for a long stretch before making his decisive move. By the time the 36K mark arrived, Fahy unleashed the fastest men's split from there to the finish, hauling himself from 2nd to 1st and crossing in 2:23:45 at a 5:29/mi clip.

The man he had to catch was Casey Novelo, 22, from Bedford, TX — a local who had led the men's race from checkpoint 6 through checkpoint 8 and looked every bit a winner in the making. Novelo's 2nd-fastest second-half split among men shows he didn't fade — Fahy simply ran the closing miles faster. Novelo held on for 2nd in 2:24:43, with Joseph Hale, 32, of Dallas rounding out the podium in 2:27:11 — his 2nd-fastest first-half men's split hinting at how he built his race before the field compressed around him.

Behind the podium, the Richmond, IN contingent made their presence felt in a big way. Cameron Nocton (21st, 4th, 2:27:25) and Richard Bower (22, 5th, 2:27:30) finished just five seconds apart, with Nocton posting the 2nd-fastest 36K-to-finish split in the men's field. Axton Fosnaugh (19, 6th, 2:27:47) and Craig Lautenslager (7th, 2:27:56) kept the pressure on, making the stretch from 4th through 7th one of the tightest clusters of the morning. Fifteen-year-old returning competitor Albert Marban crossed 15th in 2:33:09 — a meaningful improvement over his 3rd-place effort here in 2024 (2:35:59), even as the men's field around him has grown considerably sharper.