Boilermaker 15K: Lee Catella Dominates F70-74 at 74

• Lee Catella, 74, wins in 1:25:02 (9:07/mi) — more than six minutes clear of the field, with the 590th-fastest women's split on the 10K-to-finish stretch.
• Pearl Savicki edges Cheryl Cronin by one second — 1:31:21 to 1:31:22 — for second place, with Savicki running the faster second-half split (1,208th among women vs. Cronin's 1,359th on the 5K–10K).
• Susan Luley and Anne Lytwynec rounded out the top five, finishing 1:31:45 and 1:32:20 respectively, both surging through the back half with top-1,000 women's splits on the 10K-to-finish segment.
• 30 finishers completed the 15K in F70-74, ranging from Catella's 1:25:02 down to the back of a field that stretched well past the two-hour mark.

On a humid July morning in Utica — 82% humidity even at 64°F — Lee Catella of Oneonta, NY put on a masterclass. At 74, the oldest competitor in the field, she crossed in 1:25:02 at a 9:07/mi clip, a margin of more than six minutes over the next finisher. Her race unfolded as a steady, powerful climb through the women's field: she entered the 10K checkpoint ranked 1,681st among all women and finished 865th, posting the 590th-fastest women's split over that final stretch. That kind of sustained surge through a massive field is a story in itself.

Behind her, the battle for second was settled by a single second. Pearl Savicki of Clinton, NY — running 9:48/mi — held off Cheryl Cronin of Tully, NY by the narrowest of margins, 1:31:21 to 1:31:22. The two ran different races to get there: Cronin was the stronger first-half runner, posting the 1,359th-fastest women's split on the 5K–10K segment, while Savicki ran the faster second half (1,208th among women), catching and just barely edging past her rival at the line.

Susan Luley (1:31:45) and Anne Lytwynec (1:32:20) completed a tight top five, both making significant moves in the final 5K — Luley with the 918th-fastest women's split and Lytwynec with the 858th on the 10K-to-finish leg. Victoria Pedersen and Angela Rizzo followed in sixth and seventh at 1:35:34 and 1:35:40, while Carolyn Burke George (1:40:13) and Jody Wisse (1:42:37) rounded out the top nine. Catella's wire-to-wire dominance was the headline, but the depth across 30 finishers — many of them locals from central New York — made this one of the more competitive F70-74 fields the Boilermaker has seen in recent editions.