San Francisco Half Marathon 2025 — F20-29: Suarez Edges Tsang in a 1-Second Thriller

• Audrey Suarez wins in 1:32:57, the fastest finish in the F20-29 field of 410, averaging 7:05/mi — and she sealed it with the fastest women's split on the 10.54M→11.05M segment.
• One second. That's all that separated Suarez from Natalie Tsang (1:32:58), who posted the 5th-fastest women's split on the second half and made this a genuine race to the wire.
• Elisabeth Lahtinen (1:35:23) and Vivian Lau (1:35:24) mirrored the top-two drama one step down — a one-second gap between 3rd and 4th, with Lau running the 4th-fastest women's split on the 11.05M→Finish segment.
• A five-minute gap separates the top four from 5th-place Trisha Nair (1:40:37), marking a clear break between the podium pack and the rest of the F20-29 field.

Audrey Suarez, 22, from Pasadena, did not have a clean early race by position — she was as far back as 17th among women at the second checkpoint before a sustained surge carried her all the way to 4th among women by the finish. The decisive blow came on the short 10.54M→11.05M stretch, where she posted the single fastest women's split on that segment. By the tape, she had clocked 1:32:57 at a 7:05/mi clip, enough to hold off a hard-charging Natalie Tsang by the narrowest of margins.

Tsang, also 22 and racing from Vancouver, ran a tactically different race — sitting in the top ten among women from the gun and grinding through with the 5th-fastest women's split on the second half. She crossed in 1:32:58, one second back. The finish time was nearly identical; the effort to get there was not — Tsang's consistent second-half pace was a catch-up story of its own, while Suarez was the one who surged late and just barely held on.

The battle for 3rd and 4th was its own subplot. Elisabeth Lahtinen, 20, from Zuoz, held 3rd in 1:35:23 at 7:17/mi, while Vivian Lau, 21, from Cupertino, pushed hard late — her 4th-fastest women's split on the 11.05M→Finish segment nearly bridged the gap, but Lahtinen's cushion, built earlier, was just enough. One second again: 1:35:24 for Lau.

From 5th through 7th, Trisha Nair (1:40:37), Chloe Campeau (1:40:46), and Janey Schlicksup (1:40:50) were separated by just 13 seconds — a tight cluster in their own right, rounding out a compelling top tier in a field of 410.