F35-39 at CIM 2023: Jackson Runs Down the Field for a 2:40 Victory

• Sarah Jackson won the F35-39 age group in 2:40:25 (6:07/mi), climbing from 63rd to 30th among women across the race.
• Bona Bame posted the 13th-fastest first-half split among women in the entire field, surging to 17th among women by 30K — before fading to 61st by the finish.
• Bridie Robillard and Nicole Green crossed in identical displayed times of 2:49:42, with Robillard edging Green for 9th by the narrowest of margins.
• A field of 566 finishers in F35-39 made this one of the deepest age groups on the day; the top 20 were separated by just 11 minutes and 49 seconds.

Sarah Jackson came to Sacramento and delivered a commanding 2:40:25 — a 6:07-per-mile clip that left the F35-39 field well behind. Her race was a model of patient aggression: she entered the women's field around 63rd, then steadily reeled in competitors through the middle miles. Her 22nd-fastest women's split on the 10K-to-15K segment was the engine of that move, and by the finish she had climbed to 30th among all women. The win was never in serious doubt in the back half.

The battle for second was a different story. Kayla Brown (Edwardsville, IL) ran a brilliantly structured race from the back, sitting 128th among women at the first checkpoint before grinding forward with a 37th-fastest women's split on the 30K-to-35K stretch. She finished in 2:42:45 to claim second. Third went to Bona Bame, whose first half was simply electric — the 13th-fastest women's split in the field through the halfway mark had her sitting 17th among women at 30K. But the second half told a different story; she slipped steadily from that high-water mark and crossed in 2:43:59, still good enough for third but a reminder of how ruthlessly CIM's second half can expose an early charge.

Meaghan Strum and Paula Lamont rounded out the top five with remarkably similar trajectories, both working their way up from outside the top 170 among women in the early miles to finish in 2:45:07 and 2:45:45 respectively — patient, disciplined runners who let the race come to them. Behind them, the competition stayed tight all the way to the bottom of the top 20, where a cluster of runners from Fort Collins, Portland, Seattle, and beyond finished within seconds of each other, all under 6:35 pace.