Boilermaker 15K F55-59: Withington Wins in Utica's July Heat

• Marcy Withington (Old Lyme, CT, age 55) took the F55-59 title in 1:10:22 (7:33/mi), more than a minute clear of the field.
• Lydia Dillon (Oneonta, NY) ran 1:11:29 to claim 2nd, with Yvonne Mery (Ottawa, ON) rounding out the podium in 1:12:17 — a 48-second gap between them.
• The biggest mover in the top five: Sherab Melvin (Toronto, ON) climbed from well back in the women's field to finish 5th in 1:15:48, posting one of the stronger closing splits in the group.
• 189 women finished in the F55-59 field on a humid Utica morning — 75°F with 90% humidity made every mile a negotiation.

Marcy Withington controlled the F55-59 race from the gun, finishing in 1:10:22 at a 7:33/mi clip — a margin of 1:07 over second place that left no doubt about who owned this field. She did drift back slightly in the women's overall standings through the middle stretch (from 89th to 108th among women), but within F55-59 the result was never seriously threatened. Lydia Dillon (1:11:29, 7:40/mi) was the closest challenger, running a strong 5K-to-10K segment — her 99th-fastest women's split on that stretch helped her move up from 111th to 105th among women before fading slightly to 124th at the finish. It was a catch-up story: Dillon made up ground in the middle miles, but couldn't sustain it.

Yvonne Mery (Ottawa, ON, 1:12:17) secured 3rd with a steady climb through the field — moving from 162nd to 138th among women across the race — and her 126th-fastest women's split on the 10K-to-finish stretch showed she was still accelerating when others were fading. Jeannine Macera (Oriskany, NY) finished 4th in 1:13:33 but ran the middle segment in reverse: after a solid opening, she dropped from 137th to 164th among women in the back half, a fade that cost her any shot at the podium.

Behind the top five, Kara Rusch (Hamilton, NY) finished 6th in 1:16:01 — just 13 seconds behind Sherab Melvin's 5th-place 1:15:48 — before a notable gap opened to 7th-place Laurie Hoyt (Schenectady, NY) at 1:19:32. The rest of the top 20 spread across an 11-minute window from 7th through 20th, with Michelle Komacek (Whitesboro, NY) closing out the visible top 20 in 1:30:51. All told, 189 women crossed the line in this group on a heavy, humid July morning in Utica.