Women's Marathon: Wistokat Runs Down the Field in Memphis

• Johanna Wistokat (Memphis, TN) won in 2:54:44 (6:40/mi), the fastest women's time on a 33°F morning — breaking the tape ahead of 684 finishers.
• Abby Hake led wire-to-near-wire before Wistokat's mid-race surge; Hake held on for 2nd in 3:01:38, with Julianne Dickerson (3rd, 3:02:22) and Sally Heil (4th, 3:02:53) completing a podium separated by just 31 seconds across three runners.
• The top five all finished under 3:04:00, a tight cluster in a women's field of 685.
• Heil was the strongest closer in the group, posting the 4th-fastest women's split on the 30K-to-22.5M stretch and climbing from 8th to 4th on the day.

The story of the women's race is a classic hunt. Abby Hake (Jefferson City, MO) went out with authority, posting the fastest women's split on the opening 5K-to-4.8M segment and holding first place through four consecutive checkpoints. Behind her, Wistokat — a local Memphis runner — was quietly moving. She started 4th, slipped to 3rd, and sat patient through the middle miles before making her decisive move: the fastest women's split on the 10M-to-11M stretch was hers, and by the time the field reached the final checkpoint she had cleared Hake for the lead. She never gave it back, finishing in 2:54:44 at a 6:40/mi clip — nearly 16 minutes clear of Hake at the line and well inside the 2023 women's winning time of 2:56:44 set by Sadie Smith.

Hake's early pace was genuinely fast — she also drew the 2nd-fastest women's split from Nia Goddard (Memphis, TN, 5th in 3:03:41) and the 4th-fastest from Julianne Dickerson (Anchorage, AK) in the opening segment, meaning the front of the field was honest from the gun. Goddard briefly surged to 3rd at the penultimate checkpoint before settling back to 5th, a reminder of how fluid the race stayed through 22 miles. Dickerson ran a steady, disciplined race — 3rd or 4th at every checkpoint — and earned her 3rd-place finish in 3:02:22.

The real mover of the day, though, was Sally Heil (Springfield, MO). She was 8th at three consecutive checkpoints before reeling off the 4th-fastest women's split on the late 30K-to-22.5M section to close in 3:02:53 and claim 4th — a finish that, on a cold December morning downhill on Union Avenue, was as earned as any on the leaderboard.