M35-39: Dembski dominates in San Francisco

• Mateusz Dembski won M35-39 in 20:44 (6:40/mi), finishing 42 seconds clear of the field in breezy, 60°F conditions on the San Francisco waterfront.
• Justin Wong ran 21:26 (6:54/mi) to claim 2nd, with Oleg Godovykh taking 3rd in 22:01 (7:05/mi) — the podium trio separated by under 90 seconds total.
• The biggest single gap in the top 20: Denis Kormalev (7th, 25:19) to Paul Santiago (8th, 26:26) — over a minute, while places 8 through 11 were squeezed into just eight seconds.
• 79 men finished in M35-39, with the top finisher running nearly six minutes faster than 20th-place Jason Ng (30:14, 9:44/mi).

Mateusz Dembski, making the trip from Poznań, was the class of the M35-39 field from the gun. His 6:40/mi average was a full 14 seconds per mile faster than runner-up Justin Wong — a gap that translated into a 42-second cushion at the line and left no doubt about who owned this race. In a 15 mph Bay wind that had every runner working, that margin is even more telling.

Wong (San Mateo) held second comfortably, running 21:26 to keep Oleg Godovykh — the hometown San Francisco finisher — at bay by 35 seconds. Godovykh's 22:01 (7:05/mi) was a solid 3rd, and he held off Leonardo Herrera (4th, 22:45) and Qiang Liu (5th, 23:23) to secure his podium spot. The gap from 5th to 6th was just seven seconds — Liu and Daniel Oliva Contreras (6th, 23:30) ran nearly the same race, with Contreras unable to close it.

Further back, the race produced one of its most compelling micro-battles between 8th and 11th. Paul Santiago (26:26), Calvin Young (26:31), Steven Aughtman (26:34), and Jonathan Myers (26:43) were separated by a total of 17 seconds across four finishers — a genuine pack finish that likely came down to the final stretch. Denis Kormalev (7th, 25:19) had already pulled clear of that group, running 8:09/mi to put over a minute between himself and the chase pack behind him.