M40-44 at CIM 2025: Omine Runs Away With It

• Chikara Omine wins M40-44 in 2:21:19 (5:23/mi), finishing more than two minutes clear of the field in a 702-runner age group.
• Aki Nummela claims 2nd in 2:23:24, with Jake Stout 3rd in 2:24:18 — the two separated by 54 seconds after a race-long chase.
• Stephen Desvernine (4th, 2:27:36) and Ryan Irwin (5th, 2:28:46) round out the top five, with a 1:10 gap between them.
• Places 6 through 7 are separated by just seven seconds: Tim Comay 6th in 2:30:41, Corey Baxter 7th in 2:30:48.

Chikara Omine, the 43-year-old from Sacramento, was the class of the M40-44 field from the gun. His moves tell the story: he climbed from 120th among men at the opening checkpoint all the way to 93rd by 35K, steadily picking off runners in a controlled, relentless surge. Running 5:23/mi on a cool, overcast morning in Sacramento, he crossed in 2:21:19 — a margin of 2:05 over second place that left no doubt about who owned this age group today.

Behind him, Aki Nummela ran a very different kind of race. The 40-year-old from Vantaa moved well early — climbing as high as 93rd among men at the halfway mark — but faded through 35K before regrouping. His 56th-fastest men's split on the 40K-to-finish segment was a genuine late charge, and it was enough to hold off Jake Stout for 2nd place in 2:23:24. Stout, 44, from Brush Prairie, WA, was the steadier of the two across the full distance, sitting at 128th among men from 35K onward and finishing in 2:24:18 — but Nummela's closing kick made the difference.

Stephen Desvernine (4th, 2:27:36) ran a composed race, moving from 173rd among men at the first checkpoint up to 155th by the finish — a quiet, consistent climb through the field at 5:38/mi. Ryan Irwin (5th, 2:28:46) was similarly progressive, posting the 121st-fastest men's split on the 20K–25K segment and finishing in 2:28:46 at 5:40/mi. The gap between 4th and 5th was just 1:10, a tight battle for the final top-five spot across 26.2 miles.

Further back, the age group stayed competitive deep into the standings. Mark Guyer (8th, 2:31:07), Ben Keck (9th, 2:31:38), and Adam Young (10th, 2:32:18) were separated by a total of 40 seconds — a genuine three-way scrap for the back half of the top ten. And with 702 finishers in M40-44, the depth here was real: places 15 through 20 were packed into a 29-second window from 2:37:06 to 2:37:35, a testament to just how competitive this age group ran on a brisk December morning in Sacramento.