M25-29: Esteban Prado storms from 6th to 1st in a blazing 2:26:31

• Prado wins in 2:26:31 (5:35/mi), climbing from 6th among men at the first checkpoint to take the lead by the final stretch.
• Kevin Quinteros Lopez briefly held the men's lead at the halfway mark before finishing 3rd in 2:30:11 — a 40-second gap separates 2nd from 3rd at the line.
• Darren Leung made the most dramatic late charge, moving from 35th among men at 5.5M all the way to 10th by the finish, posting the 7th-fastest split in the field on the final 20M-to-finish stretch.
• Chad Bell (2:47:25) and Connor Matthews (2:47:26) finished one second apart for 9th and 10th — the tightest margin anywhere in the top 20.

Esteban Prado of Fountain Valley ran a controlled, calculated race that turned into a demolition job in the back half. He sat 6th among men through the early miles, moved to 4th by the halfway point, then 3rd at mile 20 — and by the finish line he had swept past everyone to take the M25-29 title in 2:26:31, averaging a sharp 5:35 per mile. His 13.1M-to-20M split ranked 4th-fastest among the women's field, a marker of just how hard he was pushing through the critical middle stretch.

The battle for 2nd and 3rd told its own story. Kevin Quinteros Lopez of Fontana surged to the men's lead at the halfway mark, posting the 4th-fastest split among women on the 5.5M-to-13.1M segment — but he couldn't sustain that pace over the final six miles and settled for 3rd in 2:30:11. Ethan Widlansky of Santa Monica ran a more consistent arc, falling back to 4th at mile 20 before rallying to claim 2nd in 2:29:36 — catching Quinteros Lopez in the final miles with a faster 13.1M-to-20M segment (5th-fastest in that stretch) and finishing 35 seconds clear of him.

Further back, Darren Leung of Anaheim delivered the field's most eye-catching late surge. He was 35th among men at 5.5M and still 26th at mile 20, but a 7th-fastest-in-the-field closing split from 20M to the finish vaulted him to 5th overall in 2:43:10. Spencer Busby (4th, 2:42:08) made similarly steady progress, climbing from 26th at 5.5M to 9th at mile 20 and holding on. The top 20 in this 804-runner field span just under 29 minutes from Prado's winning 2:26:31 to Brian Valencia's 2:55:26 — a competitive, well-spread field on a warm Long Beach morning.