M40-44: Jake Stout Runs Away With It in Napa

• Jake Stout won the M40-44 race in 1:10:31 (5:23/mi), finishing nearly 3 minutes clear of the field.
• The battle for 2nd was decided by one second: Chip Scarinzi (1:13:22) edged James Timbrell (1:13:23) — Timbrell ran the faster middle segment but couldn't quite close the gap.
• Timbrell posted the 17th-fastest men's split on the 3.1M→6.9M segment in the field; Scarinzi was 19th on that same stretch — Timbrell was the one making up time, just not quite enough.
• A field of 123 finishers rounded out a competitive M40-44 race in cool, breezy Napa conditions (47°F, 12 mph wind).

Jake Stout, 43, from Brush Prairie, WA, was in a class of his own on this morning. Running 5:23/mi through the Napa Valley, he clocked 1:10:31 — a margin that rendered the rest of the M40-44 field a race for the podium rather than the win. His middle segment (3.1M→6.9M) was the 8th-fastest among all men in the field, and his gender standing actually improved across the race, moving from 10th to 9th among men through that stretch. By the finish he held 11th among men — a testament to how elite his effort was in a deep open field.

The real drama unfolded just behind him. Chip Scarinzi (44, Alameda) and James Timbrell (41, San Francisco) ran to nearly identical finish times — 1:13:22 and 1:13:23 — but the story of how they got there differs. Timbrell ran the 17th-fastest men's split on the 3.1M→6.9M leg (vs. Scarinzi's 19th), gaining ground through the middle miles and climbing from 23rd to 19th among men. Scarinzi, meanwhile, held steady. The catch-up wasn't quite enough: Scarinzi took 2nd by a single second, and Timbrell settled for 3rd.

Cesar Lira (43, Daly City) claimed 4th in 1:14:56 at 5:43/mi, and Fernando De Samaniego Steta (40, San Francisco) rounded out the top five in 1:15:26. After that, a noticeable gap opened to 6th-place Jason Arango (1:19:37, 6:04/mi), separating the front five from the rest of the 123-man field. The cool, cloudy conditions — 47°F with a 12 mph wind off the valley — made for solid running weather, and Stout made the most of every degree of it.