F55-59 at CIM 2019: Hitchings Owns Her Backyard

• Jenny Hitchings, 56, ran 2:50:35 (6:30/mi) to win the F55-59 age group by more than 14 minutes — a commanding margin in a field of 180.
• Beverley Anderson-Abbs, 55, claimed 2nd in 3:04:47, the only other finisher under 3:10, steadily moving up through the women's field in the back half of the race.
• Terri Cassel (3rd, 3:21:12) and Mary Sweeney (4th, 3:25:50) were separated by just over four minutes, with Julie Luft (5th, 3:26:18) only 28 seconds further back — a tight three-way battle for the final podium spot and beyond.
• 19th and 20th place — Mary Legere and Lisa Balestrini — both finished in exactly 3:49:39 at 8:46/mi, with their places decided by timing finer than the displayed second.

On a cool, damp Sacramento morning — 56°F, light rain, and 9 mph wind — Jenny Hitchings put on a masterclass in progressive racing. Starting the women's race ranked 219th among women, she moved steadily and relentlessly forward, climbing to 126th by the time the dust settled. That's 93 women passed across 26.2 miles, all while running a 6:30/mi average that would be remarkable at any age. Her 95th-fastest women's split on the 30K-to-35K stretch shows she was still pushing hard deep into the race when many others were fading.

Beverley Anderson-Abbs told a different but equally compelling story. She ran the first half conservatively — her gender position actually slipped from 293rd to 361st through the midpoint — but she refused to let the race slip away. A 258th-fastest women's split on the 35K-to-40K segment was part of a sustained second-half surge that brought her home in 3:04:47, good for 2nd in the F55-59 group and a gap of more than 16 minutes back to 3rd.

Terri Cassel (3rd, 3:21:12) ran the opposite trajectory — her gender position drifted steadily backward from the half marathon onward, dropping from 473rd to 550th among women by the finish. Still, her 7:40/mi average was enough to hold off a determined Mary Sweeney (4th, 3:25:50) and Julie Luft (5th, 3:26:18), who was the group's strongest finisher in the final stretch with the 469th-fastest women's split from 40K to the line. Those 28 seconds between Sweeney and Luft made for one of the tighter F55-59 battles of the day. Robyn Roybal rounded out the top six in 3:27:59, with a deep and competitive field stretching all the way to 180 finishers.