F25-29: Erin McDonald Runs Down the Field in the Final Miles

• Erin McDonald won the F25-29 age group in 2:36:46 (5:59/mi), posting the 6th-fastest women's closing split from 40K to the finish to seal it.
• Teagan Robertson (2:37:45) and Madey Dickson (2:38:41) completed the podium, with just 1:55 separating all three — a tight finish across 26.2 miles.
• Izzi Gengaro charged hardest at the end, running the 9th-fastest women's split from 40K to the finish to move from 37th to 33rd among women and claim 5th in the age group.
• Places 14 and 15 — Kathryn Gearhart and Ariel Keklak — both clocked 2:49:44, with the places settled by a margin finer than the clock could display.

The story of the F25-29 age group was one of relentless forward momentum. Erin McDonald entered the race 38th among women and spent the first 35 kilometers holding that position almost exactly — patient, controlled, running 5:59/mi. Then she started moving. By 40K she had climbed to 22nd among women, and her 6th-fastest closing split in the women's field carried her all the way to 18th by the finish line and the top of the age group in 2:36:46.

Teagan Robertson was similarly on the move throughout. The Kingston, ON runner sat 46th among women at the opening checkpoint and steadily reeled in competitors, flashing the 14th-fastest women's split from 30K to 35K as part of her climb to 25th among women and 2nd in the age group at 2:37:45. Madey Dickson from Herriman, UT mirrored that pattern — her 15th-fastest women's split from 35K to 40K lifted her to 3rd in 2:38:41, with Molly Colwell (2:39:25) and Izzi Gengaro (2:39:56) rounding out a top five that all cracked 2:40.

Further back, the mid-pack was remarkably compressed. Six finishers — from Sarah Wills in 8th through Andrea Condie in 12th — were separated by just 37 seconds around the 2:47–2:48 mark, and the cluster from Kathryn Gearhart to Erin Moyer (14th through 16th) were within 41 seconds of each other. In a 574-finisher age group run on a mild Sacramento morning, the F25-29 field delivered one of the more tightly packed top-20s of the day.