Napa Valley Half Marathon — F55-59: Sara Mallatt Stahl Runs Away with It

• Sara Mallatt Stahl won F55-59 in 1:36:47 (7:23/mi), finishing more than four minutes clear of the field.
• Deanna Rossini claimed 2nd in 1:40:51 (7:42/mi); Becky Wells took 3rd in 1:45:41 (8:04/mi).
• Stahl posted the 65th-fastest women's split on the back half (6.9M to Finish), holding strong pace through cold, rainy conditions.
• A competitive 77-woman field spread across more than 25 minutes from first to 20th place.

In cold, damp Napa — 40°F, light rain, and 84% humidity — Sara Mallatt Stahl of Missoula, MT made the F55-59 race look decisive. She crossed in 1:36:47 at a 7:23/mi clip, a pace that put her in a different conversation from everyone else on the course. Her gender standing improved steadily as the race went on — moving from 81st among women at the first checkpoint to 77th at the midpoint and 74th by the finish — a sign she was consistently reeling in runners ahead of her throughout.

Deanna Rossini of Penngrove, CA ran a solid 1:40:51 (7:42/mi) to claim 2nd, more than four minutes back of Stahl but a comfortable margin ahead of 3rd. Rossini's own second-half split ranked 99th among women, a respectable showing on a day that tested everyone. Becky Wells of Austin, TX rounded out the podium in 1:45:41 (8:04/mi), her pace notably slower than Rossini's but steady enough to hold off Stephanie Bouquet of Salinas, CA, who finished 4th in 1:46:54 (8:09/mi). Bouquet's strongest segment came in the 3.1M–6.9M stretch, where she posted the 148th-fastest women's split — her best comparative showing of the race.

Angie Fung of San Francisco rounded out the top five in 1:49:54 (8:23/mi), followed by a tight cluster in the 6th-through-9th spots: Silvana Sanchez (1:51:30), Margaret Rietano (1:51:54), Chandra Thomas (1:53:22), and Marty Mooney-Conkle (1:54:14) — all within less than three minutes of each other. Dawn Musgrove of Tacoma finished 10th in 1:56:19, leading a deep back half of the top 20 that stretched all the way to Susie See's 2:01:30 in 20th. With 57 more finishers behind them, this was a full, hard-fought field on a genuinely tough morning to race.