San Francisco Marathon F25-29: Kacius Surges Late to Claim the Crown

• Anna Kacius wins in 2:48:50 (6:26/mi), posting the fastest women's split on the final 24-miles-to-finish stretch to seal a dramatic comeback.
• Catie Camron rockets from 19th to 5th among women in the back half, finishing 2nd in F25-29 in 3:07:39 with the 5th-fastest women's split on the 18-to-24-mile segment.
• Rensy Shuwen Wu rounds out the podium in 3:08:58, clocking the 7th-fastest women's split on the 14.95-to-18-mile stretch on her way to 3rd.
• 18:43 separates 1st from 3rd — but a full 19 minutes more separates 3rd from the 20th finisher (3:37:45), showing how sharply the lead pack stood apart.

Anna Kacius entered the final miles in trouble — or so it looked. Through the early checkpoints she held 2nd among women, but by mile 18 she had slipped all the way to 10th in the women's field. What happened next was one of the race's defining stories: Kacius threw down the fastest women's split of the entire field over the closing 24-miles-to-finish segment, climbing from 10th back to 2nd among women and claiming the F25-29 title in 2:48:50 at a 6:26/mi clip. That's not a fade-and-recover story — that's a calculated late surge executed to perfection on a cool, humid San Francisco morning.

Behind her, Catie Camron was writing her own comeback. Starting in 23rd among women, she was still 19th at the 18-mile mark before unleashing the 5th-fastest women's split on the 18-to-24-mile stretch. She crossed in 3:07:39 (7:09/mi) to finish 5th among women overall and 2nd in F25-29 — a charge through the field that covered nearly the entire second half of the race. Rensy Shuwen Wu, meanwhile, had been steadily present all day, running in the top 15 among women before posting the 7th-fastest women's split on the 14.95-to-18-mile segment. She held on for 3rd in 3:08:58 (7:12/mi), just 1:19 behind Camron.

Shreya Ganeshan (4th, 3:13:53) and Alicia Lamb (5th, 3:18:18) rounded out a competitive top five, with Lamb making particularly impressive ground — she was 35th among women at the opening checkpoint and climbed steadily to 13th by mile 24. The next 15 finishers, from Jessica Nyquist's 3:22:34 in 6th through Tessa Petrich's 3:37:45 in 20th, filled out a 322-runner field that made F25-29 one of the deepest fields on the start line.