San Francisco Half Marathon 2024: Betsy Myers Leads a Deep F55-59 Field Through the City

• Betsy Myers won the F55-59 race in 1:51:52 (8:32/mi), finishing more than 2:30 ahead of runner-up Qiuhong Sun.
• Qiuhong Sun made a decisive mid-race charge, posting the 63rd-fastest women's split on the 7.12M–10.65M stretch to climb from 201st to 132nd among women before finishing 2nd in 1:54:25.
• Katrin Weppner and Freya Sydnor staged a tight battle for 5th and 6th, separated by just 9 seconds (2:03:55 vs. 2:04:04) — but Weppner faded through the back half while Sydnor closed the gap.
• The F55-59 field stretched 98 finishers deep, with the top 20 alone spanning from 1:51:52 down to 2:14:45.

Betsy Myers of Chattanooga set the tone early, moving from 77th among women at the first checkpoint all the way up to 68th by the 2.13M–6.62M stretch — where she posted the 58th-fastest women's split in the field — before gradually settling back in the women's standings as the race wore on. What never wavered was her pace: 8:32 per mile from start to finish, a full 12 seconds per mile faster than anyone else in the F55-59 field. She crossed in 1:51:52, a clear and commanding win.

Qiuhong Sun had the most interesting positional story of the race. Starting conservatively, she sat 201st among women early on, but her 7.12M–10.65M split — 63rd-fastest among women — was the engine of a remarkable surge that carried her all the way up to 132nd in the women's field at that checkpoint. She couldn't quite hold that position to the line, settling back to 183rd among women, but her 1:54:25 finish was more than enough to lock up second place. Traci Brown of Spokane Valley ran a steadier race to claim third in 1:56:54, never straying far from the top 250–300 among women throughout.

The battle for fourth through seventh was the most compressed stretch of the leaderboard. Mari Bradley (2:00:04) and Katrin Weppner (2:03:55) both faded in the second half — Weppner notably sliding from 190th among women to 433rd — while Freya Sydnor (2:04:04) and Jin Youn (2:04:52) ran more even efforts. Just nine seconds split Weppner and Sydnor at the line. Jane Champagne, Andi Eggers, and Catherine Jude then arrived within ten seconds of each other, finishing 8th through 10th between 2:06:36 and 2:06:46 to close out a competitive top ten.