Women's Race: Van Sickle Takes Command and Never Looks Back

• Heather van Sickle won in 8:27:59 (10:10/mi), posting the fastest women's split on the Willow Creek→Beals Point segment and leading from the second checkpoint to the finish.
• Carrie Peterson-Kirby, 52, charged from 6th to 2nd with the 2nd-fastest women's split on Beals Point→Granite Bay, finishing in 9:18:02.
• Kassandra Dimaggio, 56, mirrored that late surge — 9th at the start, 3rd by the finish in 9:25:55 — running the 3rd-fastest women's split on Granite Bay→Rattlesnake Bar.
• Christy Cabezut led the women's field early but faded from 1st to 4th, finishing in 9:45:58 — still posting the 5th-fastest women's split on Willow Creek→Beals Point.

Heather van Sickle, 43, of Sacramento, didn't waste time making her move. She ran in 2nd through the opening stretch, then seized the lead at the second checkpoint and held it through 73°F heat all the way to Auburn. Her 8:27:59 — a 10:10/mi clip across 50 miles — was a class apart from the field, and her fastest women's split on the Willow Creek→Beals Point stretch made clear this wasn't a lucky gap; she was the strongest woman on the course.

Behind her, the real drama was a story of patient climbers. Carrie Peterson-Kirby, 52, was running in 6th as late as the Beals Point checkpoint before shifting gears. She reeled in competitors one by one, eventually locking up 2nd with a 9:18:02 finish — nearly an hour behind van Sickle, but well clear of the rest. Kassandra Dimaggio, 56, ran an almost identical arc: 9th early, then methodically climbing to 3rd in 9:25:55 on the strength of the 3rd-fastest women's split on Granite Bay→Rattlesnake Bar. Two women in their 50s on the podium is not a footnote — it's the headline of the chase pack.

Christy Cabezut, 46, had led the women's race through the opening miles, but the early pace took its toll and she slipped to 4th by the finish in 9:45:58. Cristin Newkirk-Thompson, 45, rounded out the top five in 10:00:31, running the 2nd-fastest women's split on the Last Gasp→Finish stretch to close strongly. Returning runner Annalee Johnson, 43, finished 11th in 11:08:50 — a tougher day than her 9th-place, 11:00:48 effort here in 2025, but a finish nonetheless in a 41-woman field that tested everyone under a warm California sky.