Long Beach Marathon F25-29: Hansen Wins It, But the Real Drama Was Behind Her

• Megan Hansen (3:03:56, 7:01/mi) claimed the F25-29 title by nearly five minutes over a field of 350 finishers, posting the 3rd-fastest women's split on the 5.5M–13.1M stretch to build her winning margin.
• Kayla Brown led early — sitting 1st among women at the opening checkpoint — but faded to 11th among women by the finish; Ingrid Sanchez ran the opposite race, climbing from 18th among women at the start to 10th, including the 9th-fastest women's split from 20M to the finish.
• The gap between 2nd and 3rd was just four seconds — Sanchez (3:08:30) edging Brown (3:08:34) in a genuine catch-up story.
• Marin Halvorsen (5th, 3:32:22) was the field's biggest mover in the back half, advancing from 77th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 44th by the line.

Megan Hansen ran a composed, calculated race through the Long Beach heat and humidity. After sitting 3rd among women through the early miles, she moved to 2nd by the halfway mark — powered by the 3rd-fastest women's split on that 5.5M–13.1M stretch — and eventually settled into her winning position. Her 7:01/mi average held up across 26.2 miles in 72°F conditions with humidity touching 73%, and no one in the F25-29 field came close to answering it.

The real theatre unfolded in the battle for 2nd and 3rd. Kayla Brown, the 25-year-old from Trabuco Canyon, came out flying — she was leading among all women at the first checkpoint and posted the 6th-fastest women's split through the middle miles. But the back half belonged to Ingrid Sanchez. The 29-year-old Angeleno had been quietly climbing all race, and her 9th-fastest women's split from 20M to the finish was the decisive move — she crossed in 3:08:30 to Brown's 3:08:34, a four-second margin that reflects two very different race strategies arriving at nearly the same clock.

Further back, Marin Halvorsen (3:32:22) and Brenna Vallejos (3:33:53) rounded out the top six, with Halvorsen's surge from 77th among women to 44th marking one of the more impressive second-half climbs in the field. The 350-finisher F25-29 group proved to be one of the deeper and more dynamic fields on the course.