Chicago 13.1 Half Marathon: Righeimer rules the F30-34 field

• Vanessa Righeimer won the F30-34 age group in 1:25:02 (6:29/mi), finishing 8th among all women — the class of a 622-runner field.
• Her margin over runner-up Sophia Chang was 4 minutes and 6 seconds — a commanding wire-to-wire gap at the front.
• Heather Stevens made the day's most dramatic move, climbing from 39th to 25th among women by the finish, powered by the 14th-fastest women's split on the final 15K-to-finish stretch.
• Karen Lesiewicz and Sophia Chang both posted top-20 women's splits on the 8K–10K segment — Lesiewicz 19th-fastest, Chang 20th — as the two of them quietly traded positions through the middle miles before settling into 3rd and 2nd.

Vanessa Righeimer crossed in 1:25:02 and never wavered. She held 7th among all women from the opening checkpoint through 15K before settling into 8th at the line — a remarkably steady performance at 6:29 per mile on a warm June morning in Chicago. Her 7th-fastest women's split on the 5K–8K segment signals where she was doing her real work, and the result adds a compelling chapter to her Chicago 13.1 story: she ran 1:21:27 here in 2022, finishing 9th among women, and while today's time was slower, she stood atop the F30-34 podium.

Sophia Chang (1:29:08, 6:48/mi) was a comfortable second, moving from 22nd among women at the midpoint to 21st by the finish — consistent, if not explosive. Just 85 seconds behind her came Karen Lesiewicz (1:30:33), a local Chicagoan who was more aggressive through the middle miles, climbing as high as 21st among women before settling into 24th. The gap between 2nd and 3rd in the age group was tight enough to keep it interesting.

The story of the back half belonged to Heather Stevens. Starting outside the top 35 among women, she steadily reeled in competitors and crossed in 1:30:47 — just 14 seconds behind Lesiewicz — with the 14th-fastest women's split from 15K to the finish. That closing surge earned her 4th in the F30-34 group and 25th among all women. In a field of 622, with the mercury pushing 72°F and a steady wind, that kind of late-race acceleration is the number that stands out.