NB30-39 Women: Lyons-Justus Runs Away with It

• Brooke Lyons-Justus won the NB30-39 race in 1:41:12 (14:48/mi avg), finishing 4th among all women.
• A 17-minute gap separates 1st from 2nd — the largest margin in this three-woman field.
• Lauren Baker (2nd, 1:58:26) and Morgan Bartholomew (3rd, 1:59:50) were separated by just 84 seconds at the finish.
• Baker posted the 6th-fastest women's split on Snow King→Finish; Bartholomew countered with the 8th-fastest women's split on Olympic Valley East→Snow King.

Brooke Lyons-Justus made this race look decisive from the start. The 31-year-old Oakland native crossed the line in 1:41:12, a commanding performance on a course that climbs and descends between 6,199 and 7,543 feet — thin air that has a way of separating the field in a hurry. She held 4th among all women through the early checkpoints and never fell back, capping her day with the 4th-fastest women's split on the Snow King→Finish stretch. That closing punch underscored just how controlled her effort was across the whole race.

Behind her, the battle for 2nd and 3rd was a proper race within a race. Lauren Baker of Portland came in at 1:58:26 (17:20/mi), spending much of the race shuffling between 7th and 9th among women before rallying to finish 8th. Her Snow King→Finish split was the 6th-fastest among women — a strong close that held off any late challenge. Morgan Bartholomew, also from Oakland, answered with the 8th-fastest women's split on the Olympic Valley East→Snow King segment and finished 9th among women in 1:59:50 (17:32/mi). Bartholomew actually moved ahead of Baker on that middle stretch — tracking 8th to Baker's 9th at that checkpoint — before Baker reclaimed the spot on the final push to the line.

Eighty-four seconds was all that stood between 2nd and 3rd at the finish: Baker ran a faster closing leg, Bartholomew was quicker through the middle. In a three-woman field run at high elevation on a clear, cool morning, both pushed each other to within a minute and a half — a genuinely hard-fought contest for the podium's lower steps.