California International Marathon 2025 — F55-59: Breen edges Schwartz by one second in a stunning duel

• 1 second apart: Verity Breen (3:12:37) and Lisa Schwartz (3:12:38) finished 1st and 2nd in the F55-59 group, separated by the slimmest margin in a 128-woman field.
• Breen faded, Schwartz surged — same clock, different journeys: Breen drifted from 276th to 434th among women across the race; Schwartz climbed from 471st all the way up to 435th, running the closing stretch as one of the stronger finishers in the women's field.
• Solid podium gap: Third-place Carrie Scace (3:17:54, 7:33/mi) finished more than five minutes behind the top two, giving the race a clear two-woman battle at the front.
• Deep field: 128 women finished in F55-59, with the top 20 all coming in under 3:42 on a cool, overcast Sacramento morning.

The headline story in the F55-59 group is one of the closest age-group finishes you'll see anywhere: Verity Breen, 59, of Lagunitas-Forest Knolls, CA, crossed in 3:12:37 at a 7:21/mi average to claim the win — but Lisa Schwartz, 55, of New York, NY, finished just one second later at 3:12:38. The places differ because the timing chips don't lie, and Breen's was fractionally ahead. One second. Over 26.2 miles. In 46-degree California air.

What makes the result even richer is how differently those identical-looking finish times were earned. Breen ran near the front of the women's field early, sitting 276th among women through the first 5K, before gradually settling back to 434th by the finish — a controlled but fading arc. Schwartz took the opposite path entirely, starting 471st among women and methodically reeling runners in across every segment, arriving at 435th by the finish line. She posted the 326th-fastest women's split on the final 40K-to-finish stretch, a strong closing effort that nearly — but not quite — caught Breen in time.

Behind the top two, Carrie Scace (3:17:54, 7:33/mi) took third with a steady, consistent run — her gender place barely moved across the race, a sign of even pacing throughout. Julia Wang (3:18:25, 7:34/mi) was fourth, just 31 seconds further back, while Yanan Yang (3:21:40, 7:42/mi) rounded out the top five with one of the more notable position gains in the group, climbing from 655th among women at the 5K mark all the way to 562nd by 30K before finishing 609th — a strong middle surge that cooled slightly late.

Romney Resney (6th, 3:24:38), Stacey Stern (7th, 3:26:50), and Yueh-Ling Lin (8th, 3:27:17) kept the competition honest through the top ten, with Rachael Allen (9th, 3:28:25) and Jennifer Hoogesteger (10th, 3:28:40) separated by just 15 seconds. The F55-59 group brought 128 finishers to the line, all of them navigating the same cool, nearly still morning on the roads into Sacramento — and none of them will forget that the age-group title came down to a single tick of the clock.