Two Cities Marathon 10K — F65-69: Clemings Leads a Full Fresno Sweep

• Betsy Clemings won the F65-69 age group in 1:07:20 (10:50/mi), finishing with the 168th-fastest women's split on the final stretch from mile 1 to the finish.
• Evelyn Sue Sharwood was 2nd in 1:13:38 — a gap of 6:18 back from Clemings — while Frances Carmona rounded out the podium in 1:24:04.
• All five finishers were from the Fresno/Clovis metro area, making this one of the most locally concentrated age-group fields of the day.
• Every finisher in the top three gained places among women on the back half of the race, a sign the group ran smart and strong when it counted.

Betsy Clemings, 67, from Clovis, was the class of the F65-69 group from start to finish. She entered the mile-1-to-finish segment ranked 208th among women and surged to 172nd by the line — picking off 36 competitors on the closing stretch at a steady 10:50-per-mile clip. That kind of negative-split momentum doesn't happen by accident on a warm 74°F November morning in Fresno.

Evelyn Sue Sharwood, 68, ran a disciplined race of her own, climbing from 293rd to 251st among women over that same stretch and finishing 2nd in the age group in 1:13:38. Frances Carmona, also 67 and also from Fresno, made the most dramatic move of the three podium finishers — jumping from 409th to 335th among women on the back half — to claim 3rd in 1:24:04.

Behind them, Bertha Soto and Cheryl Carlson completed all five spots in the age group. Soto, 66, crossed in 1:35:18 but gave back some ground late, sliding from 373rd to 401st among women. Carlson, 65, finished in 1:43:29 at 16:39 per mile, the youngest in the group and the last across the line. Five starters, five finishers — a clean sweep for a tight-knit local age group that showed up and got it done.