F70+ at American River 50 Miler 10-Miler: Bartley Edges Lloyd by Less Than a Second

• Mo Bartley wins the F70+ group in 2:14:45, holding off Dee Lloyd by just 0.16 seconds — the slimmest of margins after 10 miles on a warm April day in Auburn.
• Dee Lloyd matched Bartley stride for stride, clocking the 13th-fastest women's split on the Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp segment; Bartley was right behind her with the 14th-fastest on that same stretch.
• Candace Furlong (age 75) was the biggest mover on the back half, climbing from 62nd to 33rd among women between the first checkpoint and the finish — the strongest late surge in the F70+ group.
• Dilyn Radakovitz, 79, finished 9th in the group at 3:18:01, the oldest finisher in the field.

Eleven women 70 and older toed the line at American River's 10-mile race on a clear, 73°F afternoon — warm enough to make every minute on trail count. The story at the front was almost impossibly tight: Mo Bartley of Auburn crossed in 2:14:45.63, with Dee Lloyd of Lincoln finishing in 2:14:45.79. Sixteen hundredths of a second separated them after 10 miles of running. Both were averaging 13:29 per mile, and both had been trading positions among the women's field throughout — Bartley moving from 4th to 18th among women as the field settled in, Lloyd tracking from 10th to 19th. The win goes to Bartley, but Lloyd gave her absolutely nothing to spare.

June Montuori rounded out the podium in 2:26:35, finishing 3rd in the F70+ group and posting the 19th-fastest women's split on the Last Gasp→Finish segment — a strong close. Behind her, Candace Furlong told a different kind of story: sitting 62nd among women at the first checkpoint, she reeled in competitors steadily, reaching the finish 33rd among women with the 24th-fastest women's split on that final stretch. At 75, that kind of negative-split racing is worth noting.

The back half of the F70+ field spread across nearly two hours of finishing times, from Jan Jones at 2:46:03 through Mary Simpson's gutsy 4:03:55 to close out the group. Dilyn Radakovitz, 79 years old and from Loomis, finished 9th at 3:18:01 — a reminder that this race drew some genuinely remarkable athletes. All 11 starters finished. On a warm afternoon in the Sierra Nevada foothills, that's a result worth celebrating on its own.