Shamrock'n 5K F19-24: Mullins Runs Away With It

• Christina Mullins (1st, 24:29) won the F19-24 age group at a 7:53/mi clip, finishing a clear 24 seconds ahead of runner-up Zada Smallwood (2nd, 24:53).
• Top two broke away early: Mullins and Smallwood both cracked 25 minutes — the only two in the 90-woman field to do so.
• Emma Harris (3rd, 26:55) secured the final podium spot, running 8:40/mi — more than two minutes back of Smallwood but nearly a full minute clear of 4th-place Valeria Montes (27:42).
• A tight mid-pack battle: Brecken Bartells (5th, 28:02), Isabella Fabricante (6th, 28:15), and Tess Mcintyre (7th, 28:37) were separated by just 35 seconds across three places.

Christina Mullins, 23, from Elk Grove, put together the dominant performance of the F19-24 age group on a cool, clear morning in West Sacramento. Her 7:53/mi average was a gear above the rest of the field — Zada Smallwood's 8:01/mi was the only pace that came close. Smallwood, 24, from Citrus Heights, ran a strong race in her own right, but Mullins had already opened a 24-second gap by the finish line. In a 90-finisher field, those were the only two women who cracked the 25-minute barrier.

The podium battle was effectively settled with room to spare. Emma Harris (26:55) held third comfortably, with Valeria Montes (27:42) and Brecken Bartells (28:02) rounding out the top five. The real drama played out in the cluster just behind them: Bartells, Fabricante (28:15), and Mcintyre (28:37) traded seconds across a tight 35-second window for positions five through seven.

Further back, Madeline Jenkins (8th, 29:13) and Heidy Hernandez (9th, 29:16) finished just three seconds apart — the narrowest gap of the day between any two adjacent finishers — before Danae Decker (10th, 29:36) and Naia Guerrero (11th, 29:48) kept the sub-30 group alive. Tricia Sarmiento (12th, 29:55) just missed the 30-minute mark, while the field spread out through the 30s and 32s from there, with Mia Vlaming (19th, 32:32) and Sofia Xiaris (20th, 33:06) closing out the listed finishers before 70 more completed the age group behind them.