Women's 23K: Njeru doubles up, Belzberg storms the back half

• Joyce Muthoni Njeru wins in 2:11:52 (9:14/mi), holding the lead wire-to-wire — and backed it up hours after taking 1st in the 3.5K Ascent earlier in the weekend.
• Jade Belzberg charged from 4th to 2nd with the fastest women's split on Siberia→High Camp, crossing at 2:12:29 — just 37 seconds off the win.
• Tabor Hemming (3rd, 2:13:31) posted the 2nd-fastest Siberia→High Camp split but couldn't hold off Belzberg's late surge; the top three were separated by just 1:39.
• Christine Lundy, 53, finished 16th in 2:36:41 — one of the most notable results deeper in the women's field of 254.

Joyce Muthoni Njeru came to Palisades Tahoe and made it a weekend to remember. She had already claimed the 3.5K Ascent title before toeing the line for the 23K, and she ran the longer race exactly the same way: from the front, never yielding. She led at every checkpoint — 1st through 1st through 1st — and sealed the win with the fastest women's split on the Snow King→Siberia segment. At 9:14/mi across a course that climbs to nearly 9,000 feet, that's a dominant performance by any measure. Backing up a race win with another race win in the same event is a feat that belongs in its own sentence.

Behind her, the real drama was Jade Belzberg's back-half charge. She sat 4th through the first two checkpoints, then flipped the switch. Her Siberia→High Camp split was the fastest among all women, and she overtook Tabor Hemming to claim 2nd at 2:12:29. Hemming, who had run 2nd from the gun through High Camp, held on for 3rd in 2:13:31 — her 2nd-fastest Siberia→High Camp split couldn't quite match Belzberg's surge, but she was never caught by 4th. Allie McLaughlin (4th, 2:14:53) had the 2nd-fastest Snow King→Siberia split but faded one spot in the final stretch, while Daniella Moreno (5th, 2:17:04) closed with the 2nd-fastest High Camp→Finish split in the women's field — a strong finish to round out the top five.

Worth noting: several of these women were racing the 3.5K Ascent in the same weekend. Allie McLaughlin went 3rd in that race and 4th here. Rachel Tomajczyk (6th, 2:21:11) and Abby Lock (8th, 2:24:42) also doubled, finishing 6th and 7th in the Ascent respectively. And Amanda Basham (13th, 2:33:03) crossed the line having already podiumed — 3rd — in the 46K. The depth of racing across this weekend's fields was real.