F60-64: Heidi Witter Runs Away from the Field in Napa

• Heidi Witter won the F60-64 race in 3:48:02 (8:42/mi), finishing more than 12 minutes clear of the field.
• Lori Barekman took 2nd in 4:00:12, running the strongest middle stretch of anyone in the group — her 13.1M→20M split ranked 180th among all women.
• Katie Baguley (3rd, 4:11:03) and Stephany Hiller (4th, 4:12:17) were separated by just 74 seconds at the line after running nearly identical early paces.
• Thirteen women completed the point-to-point Silverado Trail course from Calistoga to Napa, with finishes spanning from 3:48 to 5:34.

Heidi Witter was in a class of her own among the F60-64 field. The 61-year-old from Auburn ran 8:42/mi for 26.2 miles and crossed in 3:48:02 — a margin of more than 12 minutes over second place. Her gender standings tell an honest story: she drifted back in the women's field from 102nd to 144th across the four checkpoints, but that's the nature of a race where she was already flying. Her 6.2M→13.1M split ranked 132nd among all women — a strong mid-race effort that underscored just how comfortably she commanded her own race.

The most compelling subplot in the F60-64 field was the battle for the podium's bottom two spots. Lori Barekman of Santa Rosa ran a quietly impressive race in reverse — she climbed from 252nd in the women's field at the first checkpoint all the way to 204th by the finish, steadily reeling in competitors. Her 13.1M→20M split was the standout segment, ranking 180th among women in the full field. She finished 2nd in 4:00:12. Behind her, Katie Baguley (3rd, 4:11:03, 9:35/mi) and Stephany Hiller (4th, 4:12:17, 9:37/mi) ran close but not identical races — Baguley's pace was meaningfully quicker, but Hiller managed a stronger 6.2M→13.1M split (207th among women vs. Baguley's 244th), making up ground in that stretch before Baguley ultimately held on by 74 seconds.

Jean Todd rounded out the top five in 4:19:30, and her 20M→Finish split — 269th among women — showed she had something left in the closing miles. Behind her, the field spread across nearly 75 minutes of finishing time, from Dianne Eckert's 4:44:23 in 6th to Patti Kozlovsky's 5:34:31 in 13th. All 13 women finished, each earning their way down the Silverado Trail on a cool, breezy March morning.