M15-19 at Peachtree: Comstock and Dobur Split the Clock, Split the Podium

• Dead-even finish time, different race: Riley Comstock (1st, 31:11) and Carson Dobur (2nd, 31:11) crossed in the same second — but timing's finest edge put Comstock on top.
• Andrew Bitsko ran the 24th-fastest split among women on the 2M→3M segment and held on for 3rd in 31:32, twenty-one seconds back.
• Dash Brackin, just 16, charged from 50th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 31st by the finish — the most dramatic climb in the top five — landing 4th in 32:05.
• 1,178 finishers made this one of the largest M15-19 fields on the road, with the top 20 all clearing 5:34/mi on a warm, humid Atlanta morning.

Riley Comstock (18, Acworth) and Carson Dobur (17, Sharpsburg) ran virtually the same race — both averaging 5:01/mi, both clocking 31:11 — but the timing chip gave the win to Comstock. What makes it more than a coincidence is how differently they got there. Comstock moved steadily through the women's field from 36th to 24th by the finish and posted the 21st-fastest women's split on the final 5M-to-finish stretch, closing hard when it counted. Dobur's best relative move came a tick earlier — the 24th-fastest women's split on 4M→5M — suggesting he did his damage in the penultimate mile and Comstock reeled him back in. The margin was a sliver; the stories behind it were not.

Andrew Bitsko (18, Atlanta) was the early mover, sitting 28th among women at the gun's echo and cracking the top 25 by mile three on the strength of the 24th-fastest women's split on that 2M→3M stretch. He faded slightly in the back half — sliding from 24th to 27th among women — but his 31:32 was comfortably clear of the chase pack. Dash Brackin (16, Douglasville) told the most compelling story behind the podium: starting deep in the women's field at 50th and grinding forward with a strong 4M→5M split (28th-fastest among women), he arrived at 4th in 32:05, the best finish of any 16-year-old in the top five.

The 5th-through-7th battle was its own subplot — Bo Colpaert (32:42), Cabell Townsend (32:41), and Ethan Bridge (32:42) all averaging 5:16/mi. Townsend's place edged ahead of both despite the nearly identical finish times, a reminder that in a field of 1,178, fractions decide everything. Levi Howard and Miles Dill (both 16) matched each other at 33:15 for 9th and 10th, while Connor Grifin (11th, 33:31) — also from Sharpsburg, same hometown as Dobur — rounded out a strong showing for that zip code on Independence Day.