Women's 25-Miler: Bilo dominates from wire to wire

• Peyton Bilo, 3:16:36 — winner by 23:41, averaging 7:52/mi and posting the fastest women's split on the Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp segment.
• Kate Kerins, 3:40:17 — held 2nd place throughout and backed it up with the 2nd-fastest women's split on that same stretch.
• Tamren Wilson edged 4th, 4:45:56 — ran the 3rd-fastest women's closing split (Last Gasp→Finish) to move from 5th to 4th, squeezing past Patricia Jackson by just 1:15.
• Angie Pozzi, 5:19:40 — 10th at age 66, one of the most striking results in a 43-woman field.

Peyton Bilo, 27, of El Dorado Hills, made this look authoritative. She led from the opening checkpoint to the finish, never ceding her spot at the front, and her 7:52/mi average over 25 miles of American River trail is the number that defines the women's race. The 23:41 margin over runner-up Kate Kerins isn't a close contest — it's a statement. Her fastest women's split on the Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp segment was the exclamation point on a wire-to-wire performance.

Kerins, also 27 and racing out of nearby Folsom, was equally untroubled in her position. She sat 2nd at every checkpoint and posted the 2nd-fastest women's split through Rattlesnake Bar→Last Gasp, finishing in 3:40:17 at 8:49/mi — a pace nearly a minute per mile slower than Bilo's, which tells you just how commanding the win was. Between Kerins and 3rd-place Madison Petersen, 23, the gap yawns wide: Petersen crossed in 4:44:41.

The real drama in the women's race played out behind Petersen. Tamren Wilson, 27, of Auburn — racing on home turf — was sitting 5th at the midpoint but ran the 3rd-fastest closing split (Last Gasp→Finish) among all the women to reel in Patricia Jackson and take 4th in 4:45:56. Jackson, 57, finished 5th in 4:59:01, having held 4th through the middle of the race before Wilson's late charge. Elisheva Verdi (6th, 5:00:04) and Kim Kortz (7th, 5:00:11) completed a tight cluster just past the five-hour mark.

Angie Pozzi deserves a special mention: the 66-year-old from Granite Bay finished 10th in 5:19:40 — 12:47/mi for 25 miles. In a 43-woman field that stretched well past the six-hour mark, that's one of the day's most compelling numbers.