California International Marathon F50-54: Peggy Yetman Runs 2:50 in the Rain

• Yetman wins at 6:30/mi, finishing in 2:50:18 — nearly five and a half minutes clear of runner-up Midori Sperandeo (2:55:42).
• Sperandeo was the strongest closer in the top five, posting the 127th-fastest women's split on the 40K-to-finish stretch and climbing from 229th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 195th by the line.
• Liz Guerrini (2:59:49) held on for 3rd despite a pronounced fade, slipping from 194th among women at the start to 264th mid-race before recovering slightly to 259th at the finish.
• Verity Breen (3:08:08) edged Lan Clayton (3:07:38) for 5th — wait, Clayton's 3:07:38 was actually 30 seconds faster, landing her 4th; Breen's 3:08:08 rounded out the top five in a field of 285.

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Wet, cool, and windy — 56°F with light rain and 9 mph wind blowing through Sacramento — this was a day that rewarded discipline, and Peggy Yetman of Spring, TX, had plenty of it. The 51-year-old ran 2:50:18 at a 6:30/mi clip, a dominant wire-to-wire performance in the F50-54 field. Her gender place did drift slightly in the back half — she sat 102nd among women early before settling around 120th through the middle miles — but she never relinquished the age-group lead and crossed the line with a commanding margin.

Midori Sperandeo of Folsom, CA, told the opposite story: a patient, progressive race. She was 229th among women through the first checkpoint and kept chipping away, eventually reaching 195th by the finish in 2:55:42 (6:42/mi). Her 127th-fastest women's split on the final 40K-to-finish segment was the best closing kick in the top five, and it earned her a convincing runner-up finish. Liz Guerrini of Long Beach rounded out the podium in 2:59:49 (6:51/mi), though her path was far bumpier — she faded from 194th among women to 264th before steadying, suggesting the middle miles cost her dearly on this damp December morning.

Behind the podium, Lan Clayton (3:07:38, 7:09/mi) and Verity Breen (3:08:08, 7:11/mi) separated themselves from the rest of the F50-54 field, finishing 4th and 5th just 30 seconds apart. Helen Huang (3:20:59) led the next cluster, with Riya Young (3:21:50) and Simone Summers (3:22:35) close behind. The top 20 spanned from Yetman's 2:50 to Xin Shan's 3:36:47 — a 46-minute window across 285 finishers that speaks to the depth and range of this group on a challenging race day.