M35-39 Half Marathon: Ayano dominates in Napa

• Gudisa Ayano wins M35-39 in 1:10:15 (5:22/mi), finishing 6th among all men — a commanding margin of 3:17 over runner-up William Holleran.
• The podium is tightly stacked: Holleran (1:13:32) and Arturo Fernandez (1:14:20) are separated by just 48 seconds, with both holding their men's field positions steady through the back half.
• Isaac Sorkin (5th, 1:21:37) and David Lam (6th, 1:21:40) finish just 3 seconds apart — the closest gap in the top 20.
• A pack of four runners — Andrew Liu, Ethan Batraski, Matthew Perez, and Henri Romeo Patricio — all finish between 1:29:14 and 1:29:41, a 27-second window spanning 8th through 11th place.

In cold, damp Napa — 37°F and 87% humidity at the gun — Gudisa Ayano of Oakland ran away from the M35-39 field with authority, crossing in 1:10:15 at a 5:22/mi clip. His 6th-place finish among all men tells the story of how far ahead of his peers he truly was. The 3:17 cushion he built over second place wasn't a late-race gift — Ayano posted the 10th-fastest men's split on the 6.9M-to-finish stretch, meaning he was still moving with purpose when others were grinding through the final miles.

William Holleran (San Francisco, 1:13:32) held 11th among men from the midpoint through the finish line, never yielding a spot and running a 5:37/mi average to claim second. Right behind him, Arturo Fernandez (Oakland, 1:14:20) was equally locked in at 12th among men. Notably, Holleran's 7th-fastest men's split on the closing stretch was sharper than Fernandez's 11th-fastest — a faster back half that nearly, but not quite, closed the gap that had already opened between them. John Gaudette rounded out the podium's extended reach in 4th at 1:18:27 (5:59/mi), a clear step back from the lead trio.

The mid-field drama belonged to Sorkin and Lam. Sorkin faded slightly in the men's standings over the back half — dropping from 25th to 27th among men — while Lam held on, and the two arrived within 3 seconds of each other (1:21:37 and 1:21:40). Further back, a genuine cluster formed around the 1:29 mark: Liu and Batraski were credited with the same 1:29:14 finish, Perez hit 1:29:38, and Patricio crossed at 1:29:41 — four runners in 27 seconds across 8th through 11th place, making that stretch of the M35-39 results one of the most tightly contested of the morning.