Chicago 13.1 Half Marathon — F25-29: Chemutai Leads from the Front, Then Holds On

• Joyline Chemutai won the F25-29 age group in 1:15:59 (5:48/mi), posting the fastest women's split on the 5K→8K segment and leading among women from the opening checkpoint.
• Caren Maiyo ran a composed race to claim 2nd in 1:17:48 — steady in 3rd among women all day and backed by the 3rd-fastest women's split on that same 5K→8K stretch.
• Flannery Davis Love earned 3rd in 1:18:36, closing with the 2nd-fastest women's split on the 15K→Finish leg — the strongest closing kick of the podium.
• The top five were separated by just 5:12 across a 730-runner age group, with Camille Blackman (4th, 1:20:36) and Isabelle Olive (5th, 1:21:11) swapping gender standings in the final miles.

Joyline Chemutai ran this race exactly the way you'd want to — out front and in control. She held the top spot among women from the first checkpoint through the 15K mark, and her fastest women's split on the 5K→8K segment showed she wasn't just sitting on a lead, she was building it. The final miles told a slightly different story: she slipped to 2nd among women in the closing stretch, but her 1:15:59 and 5:48/mi average were more than enough to take the F25-29 title by nearly two minutes.

Caren Maiyo, also from Pacific Palisades, WI, was a model of consistency. She sat 3rd among women at every single checkpoint and never deviated — her 3rd-fastest women's split on the 5K→8K segment confirmed she had real speed in reserve, and her 1:17:48 finish made the Pacific Palisades duo a clear 1-2 in the age group. Flannery Davis Love of Boulder brought the most impressive late-race legs, owning the 2nd-fastest women's split from 15K to the finish — a strong closer who ran herself onto the podium.

Behind the podium, the race within the race belonged to Camille Blackman and Isabelle Olive, both of Chicago. The two traded gender standings twice in the final third of the course — Olive held the edge through 15K before Blackman surged past on the 10K→15K segment (where she posted the 5th-fastest women's split) to finish 4th in 1:20:36. Olive settled for 5th in 1:21:11, just 35 seconds back. In a field of 730, that kind of duel is exactly what makes a half marathon worth watching.