M45-49 at Cleveland: Dahan dominates in the heat

• David Dahan wins the M45-49 group in 2:57:29 (6:46/mi) — the only finisher in the age group to break three hours.
• 5:50 separates 1st from 2nd: Anthony Visioni crossed in 3:03:19, with Jon Ferguson another 2:55 back in 3:06:14.
• Fourth through sixth tightened up: Joshua Nash (3:11:05), Malcolm Corrigan (3:13:01), and Chris Sutter (3:17:46) were spread across just under seven minutes.
• 84 men finished in the M45-49 group on a warm, humid Cleveland morning — 75°F with 68% humidity.

David Dahan, 45, from Beachwood, made his intentions clear from the gun and kept improving his position throughout. He moved from 60th among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 34th by the finish, steadily hunting down runners ahead of him across all 26.2 miles. His 6:46/mi average on a warm, sticky day was the class of the age group — and his was the only sub-3:00 effort in the field.

Anthony Visioni, also 45 and running on home turf in Cleveland, made an even more dramatic charge through the men's field — moving from 110th at the opening checkpoint all the way to 46th by the finish. His 3:03:19 was a strong runner-up, and he posted the 34th-fastest second-half split among the women's field, a marker of a strong back-half effort. Jon Ferguson, 48, from Marion, rounded out the podium in 3:06:14 (7:06/mi), himself climbing from 146th to 57th among men and logging the 41st-fastest split in the 19.1M-to-22.5M segment — a genuine late-race surge.

Behind the podium, the battle for fourth and fifth was worth watching. Joshua Nash (3:11:05) and Malcolm Corrigan (3:13:01) were separated by less than two minutes, with Corrigan — at 49, the oldest of the top five — finishing with the 60th-fastest closing split from 22.5M to the finish among the women's field, matching Nash's second-half split rank exactly. Chris Sutter (3:17:46) rounded out the top six, with Thomas Ketchem (3:22:56) and Brian Lobsiger (3:26:39) close behind. In all, 84 men finished the M45-49 group on a day when the heat and humidity made every mile harder to earn.