San Francisco Marathon M30-34: Speno Surges Late to Claim the Title

• Zach Speno won M30-34 in 2:38:36 (6:03/mi), improving on his 5th-place men's finish here in 2022 (2:42:24) — nearly four minutes faster on the same course.
• James Riggs (London) ran 2:40:05 to finish 2nd, and Kentaro Yamada rounded out the podium in 2:41:44 — a 3:29 spread across the top three.
• The late-race battle was fierce: Dmitrii Kuragin (2:50:23) and Alexander Hutter (2:50:27) finished 8th and 9th separated by just four seconds.
• 692 finishers made this one of the deepest fields in the race, with 20 men breaking 3:05:27.

Zach Speno came in with unfinished business. Two years ago he crossed this same finish line 5th among the men in 2:42:24; on Sunday he rewrote that chapter entirely, winning M30-34 in 2:38:36 at a 6:03/mi clip. The story of how he got there is written in his checkpoint progression: he was sitting 29th among men at the first split, methodically climbing — 21st, 16th, 13th — before a devastating final stretch that produced the 4th-fastest split on the 24 Miles→Finish segment among the women's field, a benchmark that underscores just how hard he was moving through the closing miles. By the finish he had climbed to 7th among men overall.

James Riggs, racing from London, ran a composed and consistent race. He held position near the top of the men's field from the gun, moving between 8th and 16th among men through the checkpoints before locking in an 8th-place men's finish at 2:40:05. His 18 Miles→24 Miles split ranked 7th among women — evidence he was still pushing hard deep into the race. Kentaro Yamada (2:41:44, 6:10/mi) was the steadiest of the podium trio, barely deviating from his position between 10th and 14th among men across every checkpoint, and posting the 10th-fastest split among women on the 5.7–6.43 Miles segment.

Behind the podium, Maxime Krug and Lukas Michalek ran nearly identical total times — 2:46:45 and 2:46:57 — but got there very differently. Krug (6:22/mi) climbed from 12th among men early and held position; Michalek (6:22/mi) started stronger at 9th but faded from 14th to 18th among men by the finish. Jakob Walter (2:47:52), Domenico Davino (2:49:29), and the four-second Kuragin–Hutter duel at 8th–9th filled out a tight middle pack. Further back, Russell Field and Alexander Black finished 11th and 12th in 2:57:12 and 2:57:19 respectively — seven seconds apart after 26.2 miles of racing through San Francisco's hills.