M65-69: Santonja Medina holds off a charging Jones in London's oldest bracket

• Fernando Santonja Medina won the M65-69 group in 4:17:06 (9:48/mi), crossing more than 53 minutes clear of the field.
• John Jones finished 2nd in 5:10:19 (11:50/mi), steadily climbing through the men's field across the second half of the race.
• Santonja Medina posted the 28th-fastest split among women on the 25K–30K segment — a strong mid-race push that underlined his control of the age group.
• Jones answered with the 49th-fastest women's split on 30K–35K, his best stretch of the day as he moved from 58th to 53rd among women across the back half.

Two runners lined up in the M65-69 age group on a cool, breezy London morning — 56°F with a 14 mph wind — and they delivered two very different stories over 26.2 miles.

Fernando Santonja Medina was in command from the gun. His 9:48/mi average was measured and consistent, and he showed genuine mid-race strength on the 25K–30K stretch, where his split ranked 28th among all women in the field — a meaningful benchmark that speaks to his sustained effort through the race's most demanding middle miles. His gender place dipped slightly from 33rd to 36th before he clawed back to 33rd by the finish, a sign of a runner who managed the wind and distance without fading.

John Jones ran a different kind of race. Starting 58th among men, he quietly and persistently moved forward — 57th, 55th, 53rd — and held that position through the final miles. His 30K–35K split, the 49th-fastest among women in the field, was his sharpest segment, a burst of momentum in the race's closing third. But at 11:50/mi average and a finishing time of 5:10:19, the gap to Santonja Medina was a substantial 53 minutes and 13 seconds.

In a two-man age group, the margin tells the whole story: Santonja Medina was the stronger runner on the day, and Jones deserves credit for a disciplined, forward-moving effort across the full 26.2 miles of one of the world's great marathons.