M35-39 Half Marathon: Hultquist runs away from a deep field

• Eric Hultquist, 1:13:54 (5:38/mi) — wins M35-39 by 3:19, climbing from 29th among men at the first checkpoint to 11th by the finish.
• Closest battle on the podium: Jay Patel (2nd, 1:17:13) and Paolo De Vivo (3rd, 1:17:33) were separated by just 20 seconds across 13.1 miles.
• Late surge: Eric Nickels (5th, 1:18:45) posted the 29th-fastest split among women on the second half — one of the sharpest closing legs in the M35-39 field.
• 271 finishers ranged from Hultquist's 5:38/mi down to a field that stretched well past 7:07/mi at 20th place.

Eric Hultquist made the M35-39 race his own through relentless forward momentum. The 36-year-old from Pasadena moved from 29th among men at the opening checkpoint all the way to 11th by the finish line — a climb built on a scorching 5:38/mi average that no one in the field could match. His final push was especially sharp: the 11.9M-to-finish segment ranked 6th-fastest among women, a benchmark that underscores just how hard he closed.

Behind him, Jay Patel (1:17:13, 5:53/mi) and Paolo De Vivo (1:17:33, 5:55/mi) ran nearly inseparable races for second and third. Both men posted the 26th- and 25th-fastest splits among women respectively on the 1.2M–4.9M stretch, suggesting they were trading blows through the early miles before Patel edged clear by 20 seconds. Li-Chieh Hsu (4th, 1:18:29, 5:59/mi) wasn't far behind, making a strong move from 43rd among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 30th by the end.

Eric Nickels rounded out the top five in 1:18:45 (6:00/mi), the 38-year-old from Los Angeles turning in a notably strong second half to hold off Felipe Valencia (6th, 1:19:46, 6:05/mi) by just over a minute. Andrew Meyers (7th, 1:23:32) and Martin Grana (8th, 1:24:30) led the chase pack, with the top 20 stretching from Hultquist's 1:13:54 all the way to Hossein Saberi's 1:33:23 — a spread of nearly 20 minutes across a 271-strong M35-39 field.