M35-39: Bareikis Blazes to the Win in 1:11:30

• Arturs Bareikis won the M35-39 age group in 1:11:30 (5:27/mi), finishing with the strongest closing leg — the 13th-fastest split on the 15K-to-finish stretch among all men.
• Daniel Regalado was the closest challenger, crossing in 1:13:07 (5:35/mi) — a gap of 1:37 back to Bareikis, with a standout 17th-fastest men's split on the 10K-to-15K segment.
• Yoon Oh rounded out the podium in 1:18:56, more than five and a half minutes behind Regalado — a clear separation between the top two and the rest of the field.
• Places 10–12 finished in an identical displayed time of 1:28:54, with Adeoti, Tafaro, and Eisenman separated only by fractions of a second in that order.

Arturs Bareikis of Crestwood put together a tactically sharp race across 494 finishers in the M35-39 age group. He entered the final stretch sitting 18th among men overall, then reeled off the 13th-fastest closing split in the men's field from 15K to the finish line, climbing to 15th among men by the tape. Running 5:27 per mile on a warm June morning in Chicago — 72°F with a 10 mph wind — that kind of late surge is earned, not given.

Daniel Regalado kept pace with Bareikis through much of the early going, the two running nearly in lockstep through the men's field in the opening half of the race. Regalado's 17th-fastest men's split on the 10K-to-15K segment showed he had real speed on the middle portion of the course, but Bareikis found another gear in the closing miles and the 1:37 gap at the line tells the story.

Behind the top two, Yoon Oh and Matthew Diamond both made their moves in the final segment — Oh posting the 34th-fastest closing men's split and Diamond the 45th — each climbing several places in the men's field in the home stretch. Oh finished 3rd in M35-39 in 1:18:56, Diamond 4th in 1:20:38. Kyle Kirk, 5th in 1:21:46, held his men's field position steady from the 5K mark all the way home — a model of even pacing on a day that punished those who went out too hard.