F60-64 at CIM 2025: Blackmore Dominates a Deep Age Group

• Allison Blackmore wins in 3:09:08 — a 7:13/mi average that put more than 18 minutes between her and 2nd place.
• Beverley Anderson-Abbs and Grace Kim staged a tight battle for the silver spot, finishing 38 seconds apart (3:27:33 vs. 3:28:11) after running much of the race in close proximity among the women's field.
• Ann Heaslett ran the strongest late-race surge in the top five, climbing from outside the top 1,100 women at 10K all the way to 913th by the finish — a relentless back-half charge.
• 70 women finished in F60-64, with 20th place Fengxia Zhan crossing in 4:06:27 — a measure of how competitive the group was throughout.

Allison Blackmore of Calgary ran a race in a class of its own. Her 3:09:08 — 7:13 per mile through cool, damp Sacramento air — was the kind of performance that makes the rest of the field feel like a different race. She started conservatively among the women, sitting around 240th at 5K, and gradually settled back to 375th by the finish as she ran her own pace. That drift in gender standing is simply the math of a fast runner in a huge field who didn't need to chase anyone.

The real drama in F60-64 came in the fight for second. Beverley Anderson-Abbs of Sacramento and Grace Kim of La Palma were locked together for much of the afternoon. Anderson-Abbs, who posted the 598th-fastest women's split between 5K and 10K, held a slim lead through the middle miles. Kim, running the 563rd-fastest women's split on the 20K-to-half segment, couldn't quite close the gap — she finished 38 seconds back in 3:28:11 to take third. Both women averaged right around 7:55–7:56 per mile, but the finish times tell the story: Anderson-Abbs held on.

Ann Heaslett delivered perhaps the most compelling arc of the afternoon. The Madison, Wisconsin runner was buried near 1,136th among women at the 5K mark, but she ran the 513th-fastest women's split from 35K to 40K and finished 4th in 3:33:46 — a textbook example of patience rewarded. Katelyn Johnson (5th, 3:41:37) and Heidi Witter (6th, 3:42:41) rounded out a top six separated by less than nine minutes, in a group where 70 women finished and Ellie Johnson, the oldest finisher in the top 12 at 64, crossed in 3:55:04.