F18-20 at Napa Valley Marathon: Westermann Runs Away with It

• Natalie Westermann wins in 3:31:39 — an 8:04/mi average that put more than 15 minutes between her and the rest of the F18-20 field.
• Jane Adams (2nd, 3:47:19) and Angela Ye (3rd, 3:55:14) both closed strongly, each posting top-100 or better women's splits on the final 20M-to-finish stretch.
• Kaitlynn Fetterman-Riggle was the standout in the middle miles, logging the 176th-fastest women's split on the 13.1M–16.2M segment to claim 4th in 3:58:51.
• A field of 10 spanned nearly two hours from front to back — Makenna Ivey rounding out the group in 5:28:16.

Natalie Westermann of Woodside, CA, made her intentions clear early. She entered the women's field around 74th place and climbed steadily, reaching as high as 56th among all women at the 20-mile mark — a remarkable position for someone in the youngest women's bracket on the course. Her 8:04/mi average held firm along the net-downhill Silverado Trail, and her 58th-fastest women's split on the 16.2M–20M stretch confirmed she wasn't coasting. The win was never seriously in doubt.

Behind her, the real racing happened in the second half. Jane Adams (Berkeley, CA) and Angela Ye (also Berkeley) were both moving through the women's field in the back half of the race — Adams climbing from 190th to 181st among women in the final stretch, Ye from 235th to 220th. What separated them at the line was Adams's sharper closing kick: her 99th-fastest women's split on the final 20M-to-finish segment edged out Ye's 162nd-fastest on the same stretch, and a nearly 8-minute gap — 3:47:19 to 3:55:14 — reflected that difference in pace.

Kaitlynn Fetterman-Riggle (San Rafael, CA) was the one to watch in the middle miles, posting her best relative effort on the 13.1M–16.2M segment, but she faded slightly in the back half and finished 4th in 3:58:51. Elena Tyvoll (5th, 4:14:32) and Torri Ward (6th, 4:19:17) kept pace respectably, while Maya Ugarte (7th, 4:35:14), Sidney Richardson (8th, 4:39:45), Tia Evans (9th, 5:23:52), and Makenna Ivey (10th, 5:28:16) completed the F18-20 field across a wide but hard-earned spread of finish times.