F70-74 Half Marathon: McCoy edges Bachman in a three-second thriller

• Judy McCoy (71, Laguna Niguel) wins the F70-74 group in 3:19:16, averaging 15:12/mi across 13.1 miles in Fresno's November heat.
• Three seconds separated 1st from 2nd — McCoy and Adrienne Bachman ran virtually identical races, finishing in 3:19:16 and 3:19:19 respectively.
• Kim Ross and Theiry Ramirez were separated by just 18 seconds for 3rd and 4th, both clocking right around 3:28.
• Theiry Ramirez opened with the most aggressive start in the group, entering the women's field at a position nearly 280 spots better than where she'd settle — the biggest positional swing of any F70-74 finisher.

Five women contested the F70-74 age group at the Two Cities Half Marathon, and they delivered one of the tightest finishes of the day. Judy McCoy of Laguna Niguel crossed the line in 3:19:16 to claim the win, with Fresno's own Adrienne Bachman — also averaging 15:12 per mile — finishing just three seconds back in 3:19:19. Both women picked up their pace over the final stretch from 10K to the finish, each posting among the stronger closing splits in the women's field for that segment, and both climbed from their mid-race gender positions to finish stronger than they sat at the 10K mark.

Behind them, a second close battle played out for 3rd. Kim Ross (70, Fresno) and Theiry Ramirez (70, Madera) were locked together through much of the middle miles, both running the 1M–10K segment at a similar clip. Ross held on for 3rd in 3:28:07 while Ramirez came home 18 seconds later in 3:28:25. Ramirez's race had a particularly dramatic arc: she entered the women's field in the 415th position after the opening mile before gradually settling back through the field — suggesting a bold early effort that the warm, clear conditions may have made difficult to sustain.

Gail Vaughan of Clovis rounded out the group in 3:45:41, finishing at 17:13 per mile and moving steadily through the women's field across all three tracked checkpoints. All five women completed a half marathon on a 74°F November day in California's Central Valley — a detail worth remembering when reading every one of those times.