Boston M55-59: Ma Liangwu Runs Away from a Deep Field at the 128th

• Ma Liangwu won the M55-59 group in 2:41:29 (6:10/mi) — nearly four minutes clear of the field.
• Douglas Baldwin ran one of the day's great comeback arcs, climbing from outside the top 1,000 men at the half to finish 2nd in M55-59 in 2:45:25.
• John Karry posted the fastest 35K–23M split among the top finishers on his way to 3rd in 2:48:38, surging from well back to crack the podium.
• Places 13–15 — Alexander Hetherington (2:56:37), German Silva Martinez (2:56:40), and Ted Macmahon (2:56:41) — finished within four seconds of each other across three spots.

Ma Liangwu did not just win the M55-59 group at the 128th Boston Marathon — he dominated it. His 2:41:29 at a 6:10/mi clip was 3:56 ahead of the next finisher, a margin that speaks for itself on a point-to-point course from Hopkinton to Copley Square that includes the Newton Hills and Heartbreak Hill. His split data tells a story of steady strength: he was running in the top 350 men at one checkpoint, drifted back slightly through the middle miles, then reeled off a 422nd-fastest split among men in the 24M–40K stretch to close with authority.

Douglas Baldwin turned in the most dramatic positional journey of the top finishers. He was outside the top 1,100 men at the halfway mark, but ran himself all the way to 771st among men by the finish — a relentless, sustained grind through the second half that earned him 2nd in M55-59 in 2:45:25. John Karry's story was similar: sitting 2,534rd among men early on, he put together a standout 35K–23M segment — the 446th-fastest men's split on that stretch — and climbed all the way to 1,060th by the finish, good for 3rd in 2:48:38.

Richard Johnson (4th, 2:50:41) and Thierry Laforge (5th, 2:51:06) were separated by just 25 seconds, with Ryan Shrum (6th, 2:51:30) another 24 back — three athletes packed into under a minute just off the podium. Further down, the race delivered one of its tightest clusters anywhere: Hetherington, Silva Martinez, and Macmahon crossed 13th through 15th in 2:56:37, 2:56:40, and 2:56:41 — a four-second window across three finishers in a group of 1,529. Jian Zhang and Matt Saker both clocked 2:57:54 to share the 19th and 20th spots, rounding out a top 20 that underscores just how competitive the M55-59 field was on Patriots' Day.