M35-39 Half Marathon: Acosta dominates in a field of 583

• Joshua Acosta (36, Prescott, AZ) won M35-39 in 1:18:58 at a 6:01/mi clip — more than six minutes clear of the field.
• Carl Reid ran himself into contention with the 11th-fastest split in the field on the 6.15M–10.54M stretch, climbing from 27th to 13th among men en route to 2nd in 1:25:28.
• Max Kam and Donghun Shin were separated by just 33 seconds at the line (1:29:18 vs. 1:29:51) for 3rd and 4th, with Valeriy Dudnik rounding out the top five in 1:30:24.
• Fourteen more finishers broke 1:40, with places 14–15 decided by a mere 3-second gap (Phil Dumontet 1:38:20, Andrii Grynenko 1:38:23).

Joshua Acosta made the M35-39 race his own from the opening miles. Running at 6:01/mi out of Prescott, Arizona, he posted one of the sharpest performances of the morning — and backed it up with the 3rd-fastest split among men on the 1.81M–5.34M segment, signaling early that no one in this field was going to chase him down. His winning margin of 6:30 over second place speaks for itself.

Behind him, Carl Reid (35, Palo Alto) put together the most dynamic race of anyone on the podium. He entered the mid-race stretch (6.15M–10.54M) sitting 27th among men and exited it in 14th, posting the 11th-fastest split in the field on that segment. That surge carried him all the way to 2nd in 1:25:28 at 6:31/mi — a clear and earned result.

The battle for 3rd was tighter. Max Kam (39, San Rafael) held off Frankfurt's Donghun Shin by 33 seconds — 1:29:18 to 1:29:51 — while Valeriy Dudnik (36, Orlando) faded slightly through the back half after sitting 25th among men at the early checkpoint, eventually finishing 5th in 1:30:24. Notably, Dudnik's gender place slipped from 25th to 43rd across the race, suggesting the late miles cost him relative to the field.

Further back, a tight cluster of runners battled through the 1:33–1:39 range. David Vieira (6th, 1:33:46), Alexander Vercelli (7th, 1:33:53), and Alexander Gao (8th, 1:34:04) were separated by just 18 seconds across three spots. And at 14th and 15th, Phil Dumontet and Andrii Grynenko finished just 3 seconds apart — both clocking 7:30/mi in a 583-runner field that showed just how competitive this age group ran on the streets of San Francisco.