M70+ Half Marathon: Sullivan Sets the Pace in Sacramento's Fog

• Douglas Sullivan, 72, wins the M70+ group in 1:52:02 — an 8:33/mi average through the fog.
• Kitt Flynn, 73, finishes 2nd in 2:03:04 — 11 minutes and 2 seconds back, running a 9:24/mi average.
• James Raia, 71, completes the trio in 3:17:18, crossing the line to round out all three M70+ finishers.
• An 1:25:16 spread separates 1st from 3rd across the three-man group.

Three men in their seventies toed the line at the Jed Smith Ultra Classic Half Marathon on a cool, foggy Sacramento morning — 50°F, near-total humidity, zero wind — and all three made it to the finish. That alone is worth noting. But the M70+ race had a clear story at the front: Douglas Sullivan, 72, of Larkspur, ran a composed 8:33/mi to clock 1:52:02 and claim the group win decisively.

Kitt Flynn, 73 and the eldest of the three, came in 2nd in 2:03:04 — a 9:24/mi effort that kept him more than 11 minutes behind Sullivan but well clear of the field's third finisher. Flynn's pace was meaningfully slower than Sullivan's, but he held his position steadily across the race, moving from 20th to 19th among men on the Out & Back before settling at 23rd by the finish.

James Raia, 71 and a local Sacramento runner, brought it home in 3:17:18 — a 15:04/mi average that reflects a very different kind of day on the course. His position among the men's field held rock-steady at 40th across every checkpoint, a model of consistency if not speed. The gap from Flynn to Raia — over an hour and fourteen minutes — tells you this was a race of three very separate efforts rather than a tight three-way contest.

Sullivan's win was the headline, Flynn's steady run the subplot, and Raia's finish the exclamation point: all three men in their seventies covered 13.1 miles through Sacramento's January fog. Not a bad Saturday morning.