Chicago 13.1 Women's F20-24: Reimers Holds Off a Late Charge

• Mimi Reimers won the F20-24 group in 1:23:09 (6:21/mi), finishing 8th among all women at the line.
• Alena Tonne closed to within 16 seconds for 2nd (1:23:25), while Brianna Bower rounded out the podium in 1:24:11 — a tight top three separated by just over a minute.
• Both Reimers and Tonne posted two of the fastest women's splits on the 10K→15K segment (7th and 8th in the entire women's field, respectively), making that stretch the decisive battleground.
• Bower's 13th-fastest women's split on the 15K→Finish confirmed she was the strongest closer of the three — just not enough ground to make up.

Mimi Reimers ran a composed, consistent race across a warm Chicago morning — 74°F with a 12 mph wind — holding 8th place among all women from the 5K checkpoint all the way to the finish. Her 6:21/mi average was never seriously threatened until the middle miles, when Alena Tonne began working her way through the women's field. Tonne climbed from 21st among women at 5K all the way to 13th by the finish, and her 8th-fastest 10K→15K split in the women's field was a genuine surge — but Reimers matched her stride for stride on that same segment with the 7th-fastest split, keeping the gap from ever closing to dangerous territory.

Brianna Bower told a different story: patient through the first half, she was 20th among women at 15K before unleashing the 13th-fastest women's split on the final stretch, finishing in 1:24:11 to claim 3rd in the F20-24 group. It was the kind of negative-split run that looks effortless on paper and anything but in practice on a humid June day.

Behind the podium, Hannah Nelson (4th, 1:31:10) and Jennifer Aguilar (5th, 1:32:17) held steady finishes, with Aguilar showing her best work early — her 33rd-fastest women's split came on the 5K→8K segment. The F20-24 group brought 163 finishers to the start, and across all of them, it was three 20-year-olds from the Chicago area who set the pace and made the race worth watching.