Cleveland Marathon 10K — F50-54: Cancilla Takes It by Six Seconds

• Marissa Cancilla (Strongsville, OH) won the F50-54 age group in 48:13 (7:46/mi), edging Janet Winslow by just six seconds.
• The top four finishers all broke 50 minutes, with only 1:30 separating 1st through 4th.
• A significant gap opened after 7th place: Kristin Poshkus finished 7th in 54:53, and 8th-place Joan Meyer came in at 59:26 — nearly five minutes back.
• 40 women completed the F50-54 race on a humid, breezy Cleveland morning — 67°F with 83% humidity and a 15 mph wind off the lake.

Marissa Cancilla, 50, from Strongsville, crossed the line in 48:13 to claim the F50-54 title — but she had to earn every second of it. Janet Winslow of Elyria ran 48:19 at a 7:47/mi clip, six seconds behind Cancilla's 7:46/mi average. That's a genuine catch-up story compressed into 6.2 miles: Winslow made it close, but Cancilla held on.

Holly Baker (Solon, OH) rounded out the podium in 49:31 (7:58/mi), a full 1:12 behind Winslow but still comfortably clear of 4th. Renee Barrett of Avon ran 49:43 — just 12 seconds behind Baker — to give the age group a remarkably tight top four, all within 1:30 of each other. Carrie Bordas (Pittsburgh, PA) was 5th in 52:02, a gap of 2:19 back to Barrett that marked a clear break in the field.

The race then split into distinct tiers. Karin Biskovich went 6th in 53:05 and Kristin Poshkus 7th in 54:53, before a substantial jump to Joan Meyer's 59:26 in 8th. Sara Voit (Bronx County, NY) followed in 9th at 1:00:07, and Robin Kish (Twinsburg, OH) was 10th in 1:01:34. The field stretched further from there, with Nicole Braden Lewis (11th, 1:02:29) and Jennifer Toth (12th, 1:02:35) separated by just six seconds — mirroring, almost poetically, the gap at the very top of the leaderboard. All 40 finishers navigated those blustery, muggy conditions to get it done.