M60-64: Alexander edges Rohman in a tight battle at the top

• Amarin Alexander (Rockledge, FL) wins M60-64 in 28:21 at a 9:07/mi clip, holding off Marc Rohman by just 10 seconds.
• Marc Rohman (Palo Alto, CA) pushes all the way to the line in 28:31 — 9:11/mi — but can't quite close the gap.
• Ron Cadet completes the podium in 29:48, over a minute back of Rohman, with Li Ning (30:28) and Mingli Tseng (30:29) staging their own photo-finish battle for 4th and 5th.
• 19 men finished in M60-64, with the field spanning from Alexander's 28:21 to Jim Lynch's 1:08:17.

The headline story in M60-64 is a 10-second thriller at the front. Amarin Alexander, 61, from Rockledge, FL, crossed in 28:21 at a 9:07/mi pace to claim the win, with Marc Rohman of Palo Alto pushing him every step of the way. Rohman's 9:11/mi average over 28:31 tells you he ran a strong, honest race — he simply ran out of real estate. Ten seconds over a 5K is a margin you can feel, but not one you can easily manufacture late.

Ron Cadet of Redwood City took 3rd in 29:48, settling the podium with a comfortable gap over the pack behind him. But the next drama came just one place down: Li Ning (Redmond, WA) and Mingli Tseng (San Francisco) ran the most compressed finish of the day outside the top two, separated by a single second — 30:28 to 30:29. Ning's 9:48/mi edged Tseng's 9:49/mi for 4th, a margin so slim it came down to the timing mat.

Stephen Heilig, racing on home turf in Napa, crossed 6th in 32:55, followed by David Nivison of Madison, TN in 33:22. From there the field spread across a wide range of efforts and paces, with Tyrone Navarro (Napa) 8th in 37:26 and a long tail stretching through to Jim Lynch of South San Francisco, who brought it home in 1:08:17 to round out all 19 finishers on a cool, humid morning on the out-and-back course through the Napa Valley.