Napa Valley Marathon F40-44: Lozano Dominates While the Back Half Surges

• Eva Lozano (Chula Vista, age 42) wins the F40-44 race in 2:53:18 (6:37/mi), finishing 4th among all women — nearly 20 minutes clear of the next F40-44 finisher.
• Elissa Ballas storms home with the 9th-fastest women's split on the final 20M→Finish stretch, climbing from 37th to 18th among women en route to 2nd in F40-44 at 3:12:31.
• Belia Hernandez and Alicia Eno finish 3rd and 4th just 42 seconds apart — 3:16:09 and 3:16:51 respectively — both posting strong late closing splits to crack the top 25 among all women.
• Five of the top five F40-44 finishers posted top-27 women's splits on the final 6.2 miles, making the closing stretch the defining battleground of this race.

Eva Lozano arrived in Napa and made it look authoritative. Running a 6:37/mi average, she held 4th among all women from the halfway point onward, and her 4th-fastest women's split on the 13.1M–20M segment showed she wasn't merely surviving the middle miles — she was racing them. Her winning margin of 19 minutes and 13 seconds over Ballas tells the story of a dominant performance in a cold, clear morning that rewarded those who ran controlled early.

Behind her, the real drama was a closing-miles chase. Elissa Ballas (Vacaville, 42) is the comeback story of the F40-44 field: she was 37th among women at the halfway checkpoint and methodically reeled in runner after runner, ultimately posting the 9th-fastest women's split from mile 20 to the finish. That surge lifted her to 18th among women and a clear 2nd in F40-44 at 3:12:31 — a finish that required real racing, not just steady running.

Third through fifth were a genuine contest. Belia Hernandez (Chula Vista, 42) finished in 3:16:09 after climbing from 30th to 22nd among women, edging Alicia Eno (Shoreline, 44) — who ran 3:16:51 after an even more dramatic climb from 34th to 23rd — by 42 seconds. Lindsay Filice (Santa Rosa, 41) rounded out the top five in 3:18:31, herself rising from 36th to 25th among all women on the strength of a top-27 closing split. In a race decided in the final miles, all four chasers earned their places the hard way.