Kaua'i Marathon M25-29: Koa Kam Holds Off a Hard-Charging Damon Niesen

• Koa Kam (27, Lihue) won the M25-29 group in 3:21:21 (7:41/mi), finishing 2 minutes 17 seconds clear of the runner-up.
• Damon Niesen climbed from 22nd among men at the opening checkpoint all the way to 8th by the finish — the most dramatic upward move in the M25-29 field.
• Daniel Wong posted the fastest men's split on the Half→22.25-mile segment and rocketed from 179th among men at one checkpoint to 13th by the finish — a stunning mid-race surge.
• Places 3 through 5 — Wong, Bryson Robergs, and Errict Seals — were separated by just 15 seconds across 26.2 miles.

Koa Kam, running on home turf in Lihue, set the standard in the M25-29 group with a 3:21:21 and a 7:41-per-mile clip through Kaua'i's warm, humid morning. He held a steady position among the men throughout — never drifting — and backed it up with the 3rd-fastest men's split on the closing 24.15-mile-to-finish stretch, meaning he was still pressing when others were fading.

Damon Niesen told a different story entirely. Starting cautiously — 22nd among men at the first checkpoint — he reeled in runner after runner through the back half, arriving at the finish in 3:23:38 and 8th among men. The gap to Kam was 2:17, but Niesen's closing split on that same final stretch was the 4th-fastest in the men's field, suggesting he had more race left than road.

The most eye-catching trajectory belonged to Daniel Wong. At one intermediate checkpoint he sat 179th among men — a number that suggests either an early conservative start or a rough patch — yet he ended up 3rd in M25-29 at 3:34:09, powered by the fastest men's split on the Half-to-22.25-mile segment. That stretch was where the race turned for him, and he nearly ran down Niesen in the process.

Behind Wong, the battle for 4th and 5th was essentially a three-way sprint in slow motion: Robergs (3:34:19) and Seals (3:34:24) crossed within 15 seconds of each other, with Seals — local to Kapaa — charging hard on the final segment for the 11th-fastest men's split there. In 77°F humidity, finishing five runners inside 3:35 is a genuine collective achievement for the M25-29 group.