San Francisco Half Marathon 2023: Terri Rourke Leads F70-74 Wire to Wire

• Terri Rourke won the F70-74 field in 2:12:21 (10:06/mi), finishing nearly 6 minutes clear of runner-up Barbara Wessen Chang.
• Barbara Wessen Chang ran the strongest closing stretch of the group, posting the 783rd-fastest women's split on the 10.65M→Finish segment to finish 2nd in 2:18:09.
• Ann Burton rounded out the podium in 2:27:46, logging the 1,491st-fastest women's split on the 6.62M→10.65M segment on her way to 3rd.
• Six women finished the F70-74 field, spread across a range of 1:22:18 from first to last.

San Francisco's cool, overcast morning — 60°F with a steady breeze — gave this six-woman field about as good a day as the city offers for racing. Terri Rourke, a 72-year-old local running on home turf, made the most of it. She entered the women's field around 1,156th place at the first checkpoint and spent the entire race climbing — steadily moving to 1,074th, then 936th, then holding firm through the final miles to finish 871st among all women. Her 10:06/mi average was the class of the F70-74 field from start to finish.

Barbara Wessen Chang, 70, from Sacramento, ran a compelling second half. She was tracking well behind Rourke through the middle miles but showed real strength on the closing segment from 10.65M to the finish, posting the 783rd-fastest women's split on that stretch — actually faster than Rourke's 758th-fastest on the same segment in terms of the gap between them. Chang finished in 2:18:09, a 10:32/mi effort that was clearly the second-best performance of the day.

Ann Burton, 71, of San Carlos, came home 3rd in 2:27:46 at 11:16/mi — a pace notably slower than the top two but solid enough to hold off the rest of the field comfortably. Maggie Mount (4th, 2:46:50) and Karen Castro (5th, 3:17:15) completed their respective journeys across the city, while Rebecca Galvan of Harlingen, TX closed out the field in 3:34:39 — every one of these six women finishing a half marathon through the hills of San Francisco at 70 years old or better.