American River 50 Miler 10-Mile: Tommasini Takes F40-49 in a Warm-Weather Battle

• Jennifer Tommasini won the F40-49 group in 1:53:58 (11:24/mi), posting the 5th-fastest women's split on the Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp segment.
• Michelle Huffman was the race's biggest mover, rocketing from 17th among women at the first checkpoint to 5th by the finish — and logging the 4th-fastest women's split on Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp.
• The gap from 1st to 3rd was just 7 minutes, 39 seconds; from 3rd to 4th, it ballooned to nearly 15 minutes.
• At 73°F and clear skies, the final climb rewarded those who paced early — Julienne Ohara-Hsu and Cathleen Mills both posted strong Last Gasp→Finish splits (16th and 8th fastest among women, respectively) to lock in their podium positions.

Jennifer Tommasini, 49, of El Dorado Hills, controlled the F40-49 race from the front, sitting 3rd among women out of the gate before settling into 4th by Rattlesnake Bar — a position she'd hold all the way to the tape. Her 11:24/mi average across 10 miles in the heat was good enough to win by 1:18 over her nearest challenger, and her 5th-fastest women's split on the middle segment showed she wasn't coasting through the hardest stretch of the course.

The race's most dramatic arc belonged to Michelle Huffman. The 47-year-old from Washougal, WA was buried 17th among women at the first checkpoint, then unleashed the 4th-fastest women's split on Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp to vault all the way to 5th overall among women and 2nd in F40-49. She crossed in 1:55:16 — just 78 seconds behind Tommasini. Cathleen Mills, also 49 and also from El Dorado Hills, rounded out the podium in 2:01:37, finishing 8th among women on the Last Gasp→Finish segment to hold off any late challengers.

Behind the top three, a gap opened sharply. Julienne Ohara-Hsu and Alena Storlie — both 42 — traded momentum across the back half, finishing 4th and 5th in F40-49 separated by just over a minute (2:16:31 vs. 2:17:36). Ohara-Hsu's climb from 42nd among women at the opening checkpoint all the way to 21st at the finish was a quiet highlight of the race. All 11 F40-49 finishers made it across on a warm afternoon, with the field spread across nearly two hours from wire to wire.