F80+ San Francisco 5K: Acosta Leads a Field of Six Through the City

• Mercedes Acosta (82, San Francisco) won the F80+ race in 48:37 — nearly nine minutes clear of the field — at a 15:39/mi pace.
• Sally Leimbach and Cheryl Brown, both 82 and both from Temecula, finished 2nd and 3rd separated by a single second: 57:26 to 57:27.
• Sandra Lucadam (83, Jefferson County, CO) took 4th in 1:00:21, while Sharon Kerson (84) and Linda Sue Johnson (81) rounded out the six in 1:14:44 and 1:14:46.

Six women aged 81 to 84 toed the line for the F80+ race at the 2026 San Francisco Marathon 5K, and Mercedes Acosta made the outcome look straightforward from the start. The 82-year-old San Francisco local crossed in 48:37 at a 15:39/mi pace, finishing nearly nine minutes ahead of the next finisher — a commanding margin in any race, let alone one contested by octogenarians on a breezy San Francisco morning with 17 mph winds and 60°F air.

Behind Acosta, the most compelling subplot belonged to the Temecula contingent. Sally Leimbach and Cheryl Brown — both 82, both making the trip from Southern California — ran virtually the same race and paid for it at the finish line. Leimbach held 2nd by one second, 57:26 to Brown's 57:27. Their average paces were listed identically at 18:29/mi, but the clock told the real story: Leimbach edged Brown by the slimmest of margins the timing system could capture.

Sandra Lucadam of Jefferson County, CO brought the 4th-place finish in 1:00:21 (19:25/mi). Her 2.5K-to-finish split ranked 967th among the women's field, and she slipped two spots in the women's standings over that second half — a sign the course's closing stretch asked something of everyone. Sharon Kerson, at 84 the oldest finisher in the F80+ field, came home 5th in 1:14:44, with Linda Sue Johnson of Mountain View finishing just two seconds back in 6th at 1:14:46 — a tidy bookend to a field where close finishes were the theme from 2nd place all the way to last.