F25-29 at Marine Corps Marathon: Barrett Breaks the Women's Course Record

• Tessa Barrett, 2:34:07 — set the women's course record (previous mark: 2:34:08), defending her 2024 title (2:39:35) with a 5:28 improvement.
• Madison Overby (2:48:36) vs. Megan Walsh (2:48:42) — just six seconds separated 2nd and 3rd, with Overby posting the fastest women's closing split (40K to finish) to edge Walsh at the line.
• Hannah Twine climbed from 32nd among women at 5K all the way to 11th by the finish, logging the 7th-fastest women's split from 30K–35K.
• 2,322 finishers in the F25-29 field made this one of the largest single age-cohort fields on the course.

On a crisp 42°F morning past the monuments of Arlington and Washington D.C., Tessa Barrett did something that had stood since 1987 on the men's side — she rewrote the women's course record. The Arlington native crossed in 2:34:07, shaving one second off the previous women's mark of 2:34:08 and running at a 5:53/mi clip from wire to wire. She never relinquished the lead among women, holding 1st from the opening 5K through the finish, and she punctuated that dominance with the fastest women's split on the 5K–10K segment. Twelve months ago Barrett won here in 2:39:35; Sunday she came back sharper, faster, and historic.

The fight for the podium was a different kind of drama. Madison Overby (Richmond, VA) and Megan Walsh (San Diego, CA) ran strikingly similar races — both clocked 6:26/mi averages — but the story of how they got there diverged sharply in the final stretch. Walsh had moved into 4th among women by 25K and held that position through 35K, while Overby was still 5th. Then came the closing 2.2K: Overby unleashed the fastest women's split from 40K to the finish, Walsh posted the 3rd-fastest, and when it was over Overby had clawed past to finish 2nd in 2:48:36, with Walsh taking 3rd in 2:48:42. Six seconds and a furious finishing kick decided it. Walsh, for her part, had run 2:53:57 here in 2024 — Sunday's 2:48:42 was a substantial step forward.

Further back, Hannah Twine (Kill Devil Hills, NC) put on a masterclass in patient racing. She was 32nd among women through 5K, still 29th at 15K — then she shifted gears. The 7th-fastest women's split from 30K–35K fueled a charge that carried her all the way to 11th at the finish in 2:55:12. Gabrielle Galletta (Newtown, CT) made a similar second-half move, posting the 17th-fastest women's split across the back half to climb from 30th at 15K to 18th at the finish in 2:58:23. Behind them, a deep field of 2,322 women aged 25–29 filled out the results, with Laura Satterthwaite (2:59:37), Anne Massey (2:59:50), and Grace Chow (3:01:49) rounding out the top eight.