Long Beach Marathon: Ott Leads Wire-to-Wire in an Eight-Finisher Field

• Christopher Ott (Kennesaw, GA) won in 4:04:07 (9:19/mi), holding 1st from start to finish and posting the fastest split on the 5.5M–13.1M segment.
• Edgar Castro locked in 2nd from the gun and never wavered, crossing in 4:51:36 — 47 minutes and 29 seconds back.
• Mik Poulin made the race's most notable move, climbing from 5th to 4th over the final stretch with the 2nd-fastest 20M-to-finish split in the field.
• Kendall Oshiro-Hernandez ran the mirror image — holding 4th through mile 20 before fading to 5th, where Poulin overtook her in the closing miles.

Christopher Ott set the tone early and never let go. Running out of Kennesaw, GA, the 35-year-old held 1st place at every checkpoint and backed it up with the fastest 5.5M–13.1M split in the field — a stretch where the race's shape was clearly being decided. His 9:19/mi average over 26.2 miles on a warm, humid Long Beach morning (72°F, 73% humidity) was a commanding performance in a field of eight.

Edgar Castro (South Gate, CA) and Jess Clark (Long Beach, CA) were equally locked in throughout — Castro in 2nd at every checkpoint with a 4:51:36 finish at 11:07/mi, and Clark holding 3rd wire-to-wire in 5:18:47 at 12:10/mi. Castro also posted the 2nd-fastest mid-race split on the 5.5M–13.1M segment, and Clark the 3rd-fastest on that same stretch, so the top three were running their own race within the race during those miles.

The most compelling battle played out behind them. Kendall Oshiro-Hernandez (Long Beach, CA) held 4th through mile 20, but Mik Poulin (Saint Louis, MO) — running 5th at that point — found another gear in the final 6.2 miles. Poulin's 2nd-fastest 20M-to-finish split in the field was enough to flip the positions, and she crossed in 5:30:32 (12:36/mi) to Oshiro-Hernandez's 5:53:00 (13:28/mi).

Daisy Aquino (Los Angeles, CA) finished 6th in 7:00:08, Kaitlyn Quevedo (Irvine, CA) was 7th in 7:13:44, and Nasim Karimi (Rancho Cucamonga, CA) completed the field in 8th with a 7:38:31 finish at 17:29/mi.