M25-29: Prado surges late to claim the Long Beach title

• Esteban Prado, 1:52:30 — won the M25-29 field, closing from 9th to 3rd among men between miles 5.5 and 13.1, then driving to the front with the 2nd-fastest men's split on the 13.1M→20M stretch.
• Kevin Quinteros Lopez, 1:52:04 — the fastest raw time in the group, with the fastest men's split on the 5.5M→13.1M segment, yet finished 3rd in M25-29 by 26 seconds over Prado.
• Ethan Widlansky, 1:52:59 — runner-up at 1:52:59, holding 4th among men from the halfway mark to the finish after posting the 3rd-fastest men's split on the 5.5M→13.1M leg.
• Spencer Busby charged from 29th to 13th among men to finish 4th in M25-29 at 2:02:47 — the biggest mover in the top ten.

The M25-29 field at Long Beach in 2025 was 804 finishers deep, and the race for the top step was anything but straightforward. Kevin Quinteros Lopez of Fontana ran the fastest raw time in the group — a 1:52:04 at 4:16/mi — and was flying through the middle miles, posting the fastest men's split on the 5.5M-to-13.1M stretch and sitting 2nd among men at that point. But the timing system doesn't hand out trophies by split; it hands them out at the finish line, and Esteban Prado of Fountain Valley had other plans.

Prado was as low as 9th among men at the opening checkpoint but steadily reeled in the field. His 2nd-fastest men's split on the 13.1M-to-20M segment was where the race turned — by that point he had climbed to 3rd in the men's standings, and he didn't stop there. He crossed in 1:52:30 at 4:17/mi to claim the M25-29 title, 26 seconds clear of Quinteros Lopez despite running a slower raw time. That gap tells the story: Quinteros Lopez's middle-miles blitz came at a cost, while Prado's patient build paid off.

Ethan Widlansky of Santa Monica slotted in between them in the final standings, finishing 2nd in M25-29 at 1:52:59. He'd been 5th among men at the first checkpoint, moved to 4th by the midpoint, and held that position all the way home — consistent, controlled, and just 29 seconds off the winning time. Further back, Zahid Salodawala of Woodridge cracked the two-hour barrier with a 1:59:47 (4:34/mi) to finish 6th, while Spencer Busby's charge from 29th to 13th among men — finishing 4th in M25-29 at 2:02:47 — was the most dramatic positional climb in the top ten.