Chicago 13.1 F70-74: Berman Dominates with an 18-Minute Victory

• Claire Berman won the F70-74 age group in 2:21:31 (10:48/mi), finishing 17:51 ahead of runner-up Marie Finn.
• Emma Collier and Mel Handy both clocked 3:03:42 — yet Collier edged Handy for 3rd by the slimmest of margins, the timing chips separating what the clock could not.
• Catherine Saccany posted the strongest closing leg of the middle pack, recording the 3,761st-fastest women's split on the 15K-to-finish stretch — noticeably quicker than both Collier and Handy's closing splits (4,155th and 4,156th respectively).
• All 8 women in the F70-74 age group finished, spanning a range of 1:09:00 from first to last.

Claire Berman made the F70-74 race her own from early on. Entering from Lombard, she steadily climbed through the women's field all morning — moving from 3,146th among women at the first checkpoint to 2,407th by the finish, gaining over 700 places on the broader field as the miles accumulated. Her 10:48/mi average was a full 81 seconds per mile faster than Marie Finn, and the gap only grew as the race wore on.

Finn, a Chicago local, ran a composed if modest race of her own, finishing in 2:39:22 for a clear second place. Behind her, the real drama unfolded at 3rd and 4th. Collier and Handy, both age 70, crossed in an identical 3:03:42 — but the timing system saw what the clock couldn't display, and Collier claimed 3rd by the thinnest margin imaginable. Handy had to settle for 4th despite an inseparable finish time.

Saccany, just 54 seconds back in 5th at 3:04:36, actually out-kicked both of them over the final stretch — her closing split ranked noticeably higher among the women than either Collier's or Handy's — but the damage had been done in the earlier miles. Marva Russell-Minns made the trip from Nassau to finish 6th in 3:18:31, while Elizabeth Kort and Barbara Welch-Leider rounded out the eight finishers, separated by just 80 seconds at the back of the group.