F40-44: Ramirez Holds Off a Late Charge to Win Long Beach

• Natalie Ramirez (West Covina) took the F40-44 title in 3:29:38 (8:00/mi), finishing 38th among all women.
• 38 seconds separated the top three — Ramirez (3:29:38), Nancy Martinez (3:30:16), and Marcialynn Anthony (3:30:21) — with Martinez and Anthony both clocking the closing miles faster than the winner.
• Marcialynn Anthony made the most dramatic move of the race, climbing from 72nd among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 38th by the finish — the 35th-fastest closing split (20M→finish) among all women.
• Vivien Hamilton (3:37:31) mirrored that upward trajectory, moving from 105th among women early on to 62nd at the line, posting the 55th-fastest final-leg split in the women's field.

Natalie Ramirez controlled the F40-44 race from the front, sitting 22nd among women through the first two checkpoints before settling into 34th at the finish — a composed, measured effort at 8:00/mi across 26.2 miles on a warm Long Beach morning. Her 28th-fastest women's split on the 5.5M–13.1M stretch showed she wasn't just sitting back; she was racing the middle miles hard enough to build the cushion she'd need.

That cushion nearly evaporated. Nancy Martinez and Marcialynn Anthony both ran the 20M-to-finish stretch with urgency — the 42nd- and 35th-fastest closing splits among all women, respectively — but Ramirez had just enough in the bank. Martinez crossed in 3:30:16, Anthony five seconds later at 3:30:21, making it a three-way podium separated by 43 seconds after more than three and a half hours of racing. Anthony's late surge was the more remarkable of the two: she was outside the top 70 women at the halfway mark and finished 38th.

Liliana Marcos of Long Beach ran a strong hometown race to claim 4th in 3:34:48, though her trajectory told the opposite story — she faded from 26th among women early to 54th by the finish. Behind her, Elizabeth Olivera (3:38:46, 6th) and Jessica Zhang (3:39:13, 7th) rounded out a competitive top ten that stretched from Ramirez's 3:29 down to Rachel Gitajn's 3:45:37 in 9th and Katia Hristova's 3:45:55 in 10th — a full 16-minute spread across the top ten in a field of 112.