M25-29 at the SF Half: Erkocevic Pulls Clear for a Sub-1:17 Win

• Boskin Erkocevic won M25-29 in 1:16:47 (5:51/mi), posting the fastest closing split (10.65M→Finish) among the men and climbing from 13th to 5th among all men en route.
• Travis Fleming held on for 2nd in 1:17:59 — just 1:12 back — with the 7th-fastest closing split among the men, a strong finish in his own right.
• Juan Valencia rounded out the podium in 1:19:41, more than 2 minutes clear of 4th, with the 10th-fastest men's split on the early 2.13M–6.62M stretch.
• 4th and 5th were separated by just 2 seconds — Anish Thilagar in 1:27:01 and Juraj Gago in 1:27:03 — after Thilagar stormed from 53rd to 22nd among the men with the 20th-fastest closing split.

Erkocevic was the class of the M25-29 field from start to finish — and then some. The Westminster, CO runner moved steadily through the men's field across every checkpoint, going from 13th at the first split all the way to 5th among all men by the finish line. His decisive weapon was the final stretch: the fastest closing leg (10.65M to the finish) among all men in the race, capping a 5:51/mi effort that left no doubt about who owned this age group.

Fleming gave chase and made it respectable. The San Ramon runner also ran a strong closing segment — 7th-fastest among the men on that same final stretch — but the 1:12 gap to Erkocevic had already been established. Valencia, meanwhile, locked up 3rd in M25-29 with a 1:19:41 that left a comfortable 2:02 cushion over 4th place, having shown his best stuff early with a top-10 men's split in the opening middle segment.

The real drama in the back half of the top five belonged to Thilagar. Starting the race well outside the top 50 among men, he ran himself into contention with a relentless climb — 53rd to 22nd among the men — and posted the 20th-fastest closing split in the field to land 4th in M25-29 at 1:27:01. Gago (1:27:03) nearly matched him but came up two seconds short, a margin that tells the whole story of a race-long chase. Behind them, Leo Neat (6th, 1:27:32) and Jake Berman (7th, 1:27:55) kept the pressure on, with 608 finishers making M25-29 one of the day's most competitive fields on the streets of San Francisco.