SF Marathon Half: Baker Hunts Down the Lead and Seals the F25-29 Title

• Elizabeth Baker, 1:26:55 (6:38/mi): Won the F25-29 race and climbed from 5th to 1st among women overall, posting the fastest women's split on the final 11.05M→Finish stretch to close the deal.
• Ellie Howe, 1:36:55: Runner-up in F25-29, running the 8th-fastest women's split on the 5.34M→6.15M segment — 10 minutes back of Baker but a clear second.
• Joseph Kraemer, 1:38:22: Third in F25-29 with a relentless second-half charge — moving from 30th to 10th among women — powered by the 5th-fastest women's split on the 10.54M→11.05M segment.
• Marie Navarro vs. Kaila Prochaska vs. Isabella Marchini: Navarro (4th, 1:40:27), Prochaska (5th, 1:40:44), and Marchini (6th, 1:40:46) finished within 19 seconds of each other — three very different race shapes colliding at the line.

Elizabeth Baker did not simply run away from the F25-29 field — she hunted it down. She entered the race sitting 5th among women overall and spent the first half of the course methodically working her way through the field: 5th to 3rd by the second checkpoint, then to 2nd, and finally to the lead. The decisive blow came late. On the 11.05M-to-Finish stretch, Baker posted the fastest women's split in the entire women's field, crossing in 1:26:55 at a 6:38/mi average. That is a genuinely fast half marathon on San Francisco's demanding streets, and it was earned mile by mile.

Behind Baker, the race told three separate stories. Ellie Howe — a San Francisco local — ran a composed, controlled effort to claim second in 1:36:55, peaking with the 8th-fastest women's split on the 5.34M→6.15M segment. Joseph Kraemer came from even further back, sitting 30th among women at the first checkpoint before reeling in runner after runner through the second half; the 5th-fastest women's split on the 10.54M→11.05M segment was the engine of that charge, and she finished third in 1:38:22.

The battle for 4th through 6th was the race's most compressed subplot. Marie Navarro had blazed out to 4th among women overall at the first checkpoint but gradually ceded ground through the middle miles, eventually settling into 4th in F25-29 at 1:40:27. Kaila Prochaska, meanwhile, ran one of the most dramatic trajectories in the field — sitting 313th among women at the first checkpoint before surging through the 6.15M→10.54M segment (12th-fastest women's split) to finish 5th in 1:40:44. Isabella Marchini crossed just two seconds later in 1:40:46 for 6th. In a field of 761 finishers, those three women covered just 19 seconds.