Napa Valley Half Marathon F70-74: Thornton Leads Wire to Wire

• Rondi Thornton, 73, wins in 2:22:11 (10:51/mi), holding her gender place from 811th at mile 3.1 to 729th at the finish — a steady climb through the field.
• Marie Nakagaki, 70, finishes 2nd at 2:24:59 — just 2 minutes and 48 seconds back, running a slightly slower 11:04/mi average.
• Sherry Lemonds, 71, takes 3rd in 2:47:52 — more than 22 minutes behind Nakagaki, but her 12:48/mi pace included the 1,002nd-fastest women's split on the 6.9M-to-finish segment.
• Five women, ages 70–73, finished a cold, rainy Napa morning — 40°F, light rain, 84% humidity — representing the F70-74 field.

Rondi Thornton of Albuquerque was never headed. From the opening miles through the finish, she ran a composed 10:51/mi and made consistent progress through the broader women's field — moving from 811th among women at mile 3.1 all the way to 729th at the tape. Her 3.1M-to-6.9M split ranked 697th among women in that segment, a sign she was pushing through the middle miles rather than coasting. In wet, chilly conditions on a March morning in Napa, that kind of sustained effort earns a finish line.

Marie Nakagaki of Orinda made it a genuine race at the front. Running 11:04/mi — a noticeably slower pace than Thornton's — Nakagaki tracked a similar trajectory through the women's field, moving from 780th to 765th. The 2:48 gap between them reflects two runners who both raced well, but Thornton's stronger middle segment was the difference. Nakagaki's 759th-fastest women's split on the 3.1M-to-6.9M stretch shows she was competitive in that stretch, just not quite enough to close.

Sherry Lemonds of Los Altos crossed in 2:47:52 for 3rd, running 12:48/mi — a meaningfully different pace from the top two, but she moved steadily through the women's field all race long, from 1,102nd at mile 3.1 down to 1,067th at the finish. Carol Bolen of Allison Park, PA came 4th in 3:11:25 (14:36/mi), and Betty Barada of Vancouver, WA rounded out the five-woman field in 3:32:31 — a 16:13/mi effort over 13.1 wet miles in conditions that would have kept plenty of runners on the sidelines.