M70-74: Costa John Leads the Way Through San Francisco's Foggy Miles

• Costa John (Oakland, CA) wins M70-74 in 2:01:54 (9:18/mi), the only finisher under two hours and ten minutes in a 21-man field.
• Jose Cornelio Ramirez, 74, of Guanajuato takes 2nd in 2:17:59 — a 16-minute gap back to John, but a strong charge through the back half moved him from deep in the men's field up to his final position.
• Larry Mercer (San Francisco, CA) and Gary Sprague (Hillsborough, CA) separated 3rd from 4th by just 1:13 — Mercer crossing in 2:21:52, Sprague in 2:23:05.
• 21 men finished M70-74, with the field spread across more than an hour of racing from first to last listed finisher.

Costa John made it look measured from the start. Running 9:18/mi through San Francisco's hills and 59°F morning air, he built steadily — his gender place drifted back through the first half as the field sorted itself, but his margin over the rest of M70-74 was never in question. He was the class of the group from wire to wire.

Behind him, Jose Cornelio Ramirez told a different kind of story. Starting conservatively, the 74-year-old from Guanajuato worked his way forward through the men's field across the second half, posting the 1,710th-fastest men's split on the 9.6M–10.26M segment to lock up 2nd place in 2:17:59. That's a 10:32/mi average across 13.1 miles — a composed, deliberate effort from one of the older men on the course.

The battle for the podium's third step was the closest of the day. Larry Mercer, racing at home in San Francisco, finished 3rd in 2:21:52 (10:49/mi), while Gary Sprague of nearby Hillsborough crossed 4th in 2:23:05 (10:55/mi). Mercer's best relative segment came between 8M and 9.6M; Sprague countered with a sharper 9.6M–10.26M split, but couldn't fully close the gap Mercer had built earlier. Steve Behlen (Sanger, CA) rounded out the top five in 2:28:28 — his 11:20/mi pace good for 5th among the M70-74 men.