Napa Valley Marathon M55-59: Tomaszewski Runs It Down

• Art Tomaszewski (Santa Rosa, age 57) won the M55-59 race in 3:03:03 (6:59/mi), the only finisher in this group to crack the 3:05 barrier.
• Oleg Khryashchev took 2nd in 3:05:19, climbing from 92nd among men at the 10K to 76th by the finish — one of the strongest late surges in the field.
• Philip Mcnally and Bradley Fenner each made dramatic moves in the final 10K: Mcnally (3rd, 3:07:09) posted the 61st-fastest men's split from 20M to the finish; Fenner (4th, 3:10:16) the 69th-fastest — both charging through a field that was fading around them.
• Paul Sullivan (5th, 3:15:39) rounded out the top five with the 83rd-fastest men's closing split, holding off Ward Travis (6th, 3:17:00) by 1:21.

The M55-59 race at the 2022 Napa Valley Marathon unfolded across a crisp 39°F morning — cold, clear, and still — conditions that tend to reward patience and punish those who go out too hard. Art Tomaszewski did neither. He ran a controlled 6:59/mi from Santa Rosa and crossed in 3:03:03, the only man in this group to break 3:05. His trajectory among the men's field tells a different story, though: he drifted from 42nd among men at the 10K all the way back to 62nd by the finish, meaning the win here was built on early strength and held on grit.

The real late-race fireworks came from Khryashchev, Mcnally, and Fenner. Khryashchev (2nd, 3:05:19, 7:04/mi) was sitting 92nd among men at the halfway point — the same position he'd held at the 10K — but then unleashed the 60th-fastest men's split from mile 20 to the finish, vaulting to 76th overall among men and 2:16 behind Tomaszewski. Mcnally (3rd, 3:07:09, 7:08/mi) and Fenner (4th, 3:10:16, 7:15/mi) ran nearly identical late-race strategies, both surging in the final 10K to post the 61st- and 69th-fastest closing men's splits respectively — a genuine catch-up on a field that was running out of legs.

Sullivan (5th, 3:15:39) and Travis (6th, 3:17:00) were separated by just 81 seconds but ran clearly different averages — 7:28 versus 7:31/mi — a gap that held steady through the finish. Behind them, 14 more named finishers clustered between 3:21 and 3:39, with Bingbiao Fang (7th, 3:21:21), Daniel Barnett (8th, 3:22:20), and Gang Qin (9th, 3:29:38) pacing out the middle of the pack before the field widened into the 8-minute-mile range. Sixty-three men finished in total, a deep and competitive M55-59 showing on one of California's most scenic courses.