M20-29: Jake Boston Wins a Battle of Bay Area Youth

• Jake Boston (age 21, Hercules, CA) takes the M20-29 title in 1:29:18 at a 6:49/mi clip, edging runner-up Saheer Ahmed by 37 seconds.
• Drew Hansen (4th, 1:31:14) posted the 13th-fastest split in the field on the final 12M→Finish stretch — the strongest closing kick of any top-five finisher.
• Saheer Ahmed (2nd, 1:29:55) ran the 14th-fastest split in the field on the 8M→9.6M segment, faster than Boston's 21st-fastest on that same stretch — a genuine mid-race surge that nearly closed the gap.
• Joseph Schull (10th, 1:35:03) and Tom Wielemaker (9th, 1:35:02) finished just one second apart in a tight battle for ninth place in a field of 358.

San Francisco's cool, breezy morning — 59°F with a 14 mph wind off the bay — set the table for fast running, and the M20-29 field delivered. Jake Boston led the charge, crossing in 1:29:18 at 6:49/mi to claim the top spot. His path wasn't perfectly smooth — his position among the men's field bounced around through the middle miles, dipping as deep as 51st before he clawed back to 35th — but he had enough in reserve to hold off a serious challenge.

That challenge came from 21-year-old Saheer Ahmed of Los Altos Hills, who ran the 8M-to-9.6M segment with the 14th-fastest split in the field — noticeably quicker than Boston's 21st-fastest on that same stretch. Ahmed was clearly making up ground through that passage, but Boston had built enough of a cushion that Ahmed's 1:29:55 finish left him 37 seconds back in second. Jason Gonzalez (Mountain View, CA) rounded out the podium in 1:30:39 at 6:55/mi, running a composed race to claim third.

The fourth-place story belongs to Drew Hansen. The 21-year-old from Alamo ran much of the race deep in the men's field — sitting as far back as 101st at one checkpoint — but his 13th-fastest split in the field over the final 12M-to-Finish stretch was the most explosive closing move of anyone in the top five, vaulting him to 4th in 1:31:14. Jack Dooley (Centennial, CO) rounded out the top five in 1:33:03, the lone non-Bay Area athlete in the podium group, having made his own steady climb through the men's field across the second half.