Women's Marathon: Julia Ray Runs Down the Field in Memphis

• Julia Ray wins in 2:51:12 (6:32/mi), the fastest women's finish of the day — posting the fastest women's split from 10K to 8M to put her case in early.
• Johanna Wistokat, the 2024 champion defending her title, led from the 10M checkpoint through mile 17 before fading to 4th in 2:57:16 — separated from 3rd-place Pauline Meyer by just one second in the final results.
• Casey Wilson ran the second-fastest women's split from 17M to 30K, climbing from 5th to 2nd over the final miles to finish in 2:55:26 — the strongest late surge in the field.
• 705 women finished on a frigid, misty Memphis morning — 35°F and 93% humidity at the gun.

The headline story in the women's race is a patient, calculated takeover. Julia Ray of Knoxville sat in 3rd place through the first 10K, then moved to 2nd, and finally seized the lead somewhere between mile 17 and 30K — and never looked back. Her 2:51:12 at 6:32/mi was a decisive margin over the rest of the field, and her fastest-women's split from 10K to 8M signaled early that she was running with purpose through Memphis's historic neighborhoods and past the St. Jude campus.

For much of the race, it looked like Johanna Wistokat might be writing a different story. The Memphis local — who won this very race in 2024 in 2:54:45 — held the women's lead from mile 10 through mile 17, posting the fastest women's split on that 8M–10M stretch to assert herself at the front. But the wheels turned against her in the back half. Casey Wilson, running out of Springfield, MO, had been quietly climbing — 6th at the start, then 5th, then 4th — before unleashing the second-fastest women's split from 17M to 30K to surge into 2nd. Wistokat, meanwhile, slid from 2nd to 3rd to 4th by the finish line, crossing in 2:57:16.

The one-second gap between Wistokat's 2:57:16 (4th) and Pauline Meyer's 2:57:17 (3rd) is the tightest battle of the podium — but the places are clear, and Meyer of Jonesboro, AR earned that step on the podium with the fastest women's split from mile 10 to 11, a surge that moved her from 6th to 3rd in the late stages. Carly McNatt of Satellite Beach, FL rounded out the top five in 2:59:27, while Lizzie Thomas (3:02:34) and Chloe Casto (3:06:54) held 6th and 7th across a deep women's field that stretched 705 finishers deep on a cold, damp morning on the streets of Memphis.