Boston Marathon F70-74: Dawn Ebbetts Edges Out Yuko Gordon in a 38-Second Thriller

• Dawn Ebbetts (NH) won the F70-74 age group in 3:46:02 (8:37/mi), holding off Yuko Gordon by just 38 seconds across 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Copley Square.
• Yuko Gordon finished 2nd in 3:46:40 (8:39/mi), making up ground late — posting the 2,440th-fastest women's split on the 23M→24M segment — but couldn't quite reel in Ebbetts.
• Therese Christo (NY) claimed 3rd in 4:06:44, finishing nearly 20 minutes back of the top two, with Suzanne Koonce (CA) and Mary Ann Roberts (DC) rounding out the top five in 4:10:21 and 4:10:50, respectively — separated by just 29 seconds.
• 61 women finished in the F70-74 age group on a mild Patriots' Day — 55°F with scattered clouds — as solid conditions as Boston tends to offer.

Dawn Ebbetts came into the Newton Hills with work to do. Her gender place tracking shows she was sitting 6,501st among women at the first checkpoint and spent the entire race climbing — reaching 4,480th by the finish. That kind of sustained forward momentum across the full 26.2 miles is the engine behind a 3:46:02 at this level, and it was just enough. Her 8:37/mi average held firm when it mattered most.

Yuko Gordon told a different story. She was actually moving through the women's field more efficiently in the early miles — entering the race ranked 4,227th among women before dipping back as far as 5,272nd through the middle stretch. She clawed her way back, and her 23M→24M segment was one of her sharpest moments, but by then the gap to Ebbetts was real. The 38-second margin at the tape reflects a race where Gordon was the one doing the catching, not quite finishing the job.

Behind the top two, Christo, Koonce, and Roberts ran a compelling battle of their own. Koonce and Roberts were virtually inseparable from 40K onward — 29 seconds across the final miles of a marathon — with Roberts actually holding a slightly better gender position at the penultimate checkpoint before Koonce edged her 4th to 5th. Barbara Freedman (QC, 4:19:05) and Charlene Druhan (NS, 4:21:54) led a strong international presence further down the leaderboard, with the field stretching all the way through 61 finishers who earned every step of that Copley Square finish line.