M25-29 at CIM 2024: Stephen Jones Runs Away With It

• Jones wins in 2:14:56 (5:09/mi) — a 1:19 margin over runner-up Andrew Oslin, the largest gap anywhere on the M25-29 podium.
• Dominic Arce's back-half surge was the race's great momentum story: he entered the 25K–30K stretch outside the top 60 among men, then posted the 2nd-fastest 30K–35K split in the field to climb all the way to 3rd.
• Podium separation: Jones (2:14:56), Oslin (2:16:15), Arce (2:16:30) — the top three are separated by a combined 1:34, while 4th through 6th span nearly two and a half minutes.
• 760 finishers made this one of the deepest age groups on the course; the top 20 all broke 2:30.

Stephen Jones came to Sacramento and made it look controlled. Running 5:09/mi through ideal conditions — 59°F, a light breeze, scattered clouds — the Boulder, CO 26-year-old moved steadily through the men's field, sitting around 23rd among men through the halfway point before a decisive push between 30K and 40K lifted him as high as 11th. He crossed in 2:14:56, and nobody in M25-29 was close.

Andrew Oslin held a strong early position — 14th among men through 20K — but faded slightly in the second half, eventually finishing 20th among men and 1:19 back of Jones at 2:16:15. He held on for 2nd in M25-29, but the race slipped away from him after the midpoint. Dominic Arce, meanwhile, was running a completely different kind of race. The Portland runner was buried — 62nd among men at the 5K mark, still 60th at 20K — before an extraordinary back half that featured the 2nd-fastest 30K–35K split in the entire field. By the finish he had climbed to 21st among men and 3rd in M25-29 at 2:16:30, just 15 seconds behind Oslin.

Grady Daniels ran the most consistent race of anyone in the top five — hovering between 37th and 40th among men from start to finish — to take 4th in 2:18:59. Dominic Morganti (5th, 2:20:18) and Clay Simpson (6th, 2:21:05) rounded out a top six that spanned just over six minutes. With 760 finishers in M25-29 and every top-20 athlete under 2:30, the depth here was genuine — Jones just happened to be a cut above all of them.