M70-74 Marathon: Joon Ki Lee edges Stacy Bagal in a tight battle at the top

• Lee wins in 4:04:46 (9:20/mi), holding off Bagal by just 55 seconds across 26.2 miles in warm, windy Virginia Beach conditions.
• Bagal, 73, finishes 2nd at 4:05:41 (9:22/mi) — the oldest in the M70-74 group and barely a stride behind the winner.
• Jonathan Lyle and Richard Barton round out the four-man field, finishing in 5:02:15 and 5:53:36 respectively — a substantial gap back to 3rd place.
• 71°F heat and 17 mph winds made this a demanding day; the two leaders still cracked 9:22/mi for the full marathon.

Four men toed the line in the M70-74 age group at the 2025 Shamrock Marathon, and the story at the front was a remarkably close contest between Joon Ki Lee of Clarksburg, MD and Stacy Bagal of Sarasota, FL. Lee, 70, crossed in 4:04:46 — a 9:20/mi clip — with Bagal, three years his senior, just 55 seconds back at 4:05:41. On a humid, breezy morning that would test any marathoner, two men in their early 70s running shoulder-to-shoulder for 26.2 miles is a genuine feat.

The race tracking tells an interesting tactical story. Lee's position among the men's field actually drifted slightly in the early and middle miles before he rallied hard in the closing stretch, moving from around 562nd among men at the 10K checkpoint all the way up to 468th by the finish — a strong negative split in terms of relative position. Bagal tracked a similar arc, fading slightly through the middle miles before holding firm at the end. Neither man gave much ground to the other; the 55-second margin was almost certainly set and sealed in those final miles.

Behind them, Jonathan Lyle of Manakin Sabot, VA turned in a solid 5:02:15 (11:32/mi) for 3rd, more than 57 minutes back of Lee but steady throughout — his position among the men's field actually improved from the 10K to the 15K mark before a tougher second half. Richard Barton of Greenville, OH closed out the group in 5:53:36, maintaining a consistent 13:29/mi pace all the way to the finish line.