M65-69: Buell Runs Away with the Age Group in Sacramento

• R Scot Buell won the M65-69 group in 3:29:00 (7:58/mi), finishing nearly 8 minutes clear of runner-up Paul Kinsey.
• Buell's strongest stretch came late: he posted the 1,924th-fastest 35K–40K split in the men's field, a powerful surge that coincided with him climbing from 2,685th to 2,402nd among men in that same segment.
• Tom Cali, 69, rounded out the podium in 3:41:01, edging Patrick Brown — also 69 — by 2 minutes 29 seconds for third.
• The top-20 in M65-69 spanned from 3:29:00 to 4:05:02, a 36-minute window across 76 finishers.

R Scot Buell, 65, made the M65-69 race his own from the outset. He entered the 35K checkpoint sitting 2,685th among men, then turned in one of his sharpest segments of the day — climbing steadily to 2,402nd by 40K — before closing in 3:29:00 at a 7:58-per-mile clip. On a mild Sacramento morning (63°F, light winds, overcast skies that kept the sun off), those are serious numbers for any age group.

Paul Kinsey, 68, out of Eureka, was the picture of steady progression. He moved from 3,103rd among men at the first checkpoint all the way up to 2,645th by the finish, chipping away through the second half without a dramatic surge — just relentless, consistent work to claim second in 3:36:58. Tom Cali of Pasadena made an even bigger late charge: he was 3,470th among men early on, but his 35K–40K segment was his best of the day and he vaulted to 2,798th by the finish, crossing in 3:41:01 to take third.

Fourth and fifth told contrasting stories. Patrick Brown ran a controlled race from Stanford, holding his position steadily through the middle miles and finishing in 3:43:30. Pengnian Li, 66, took a different path — he faded from 2,667th among men at the first checkpoint to as deep as 3,050th around the halfway mark before recovering to finish fifth in 3:45:22. The gap between Buell's winning time and Li's fifth-place clock was just 16 minutes, which tells you how tightly the top of this group was bunched once you get past that commanding winning margin.