M50-54 at Boston 2026: Lhamzi dominates in a 2:29 masterclass

• Mustapha Lhamzi won the M50-54 group in 2:29:41 (5:43/mi) — nearly six minutes clear of 2nd place in a field of 1,868.
• Gustavo Campiz and Martin Sirois finished 2nd and 3rd separated by just 11 seconds (2:35:28 vs. 2:35:39), with Robert Rognli a further 41 seconds back in 4th.
• Juan Carlos Cardona ran the most dramatic race in the top five — sitting 5th among men at the first checkpoint before sliding to 900th, then clawing back to finish 5th in M50-54 at 2:37:26.
• Six finishers between 12th and 16th place (Atienza through Hall) all clocked 2:42:00–2:42:20 — twenty seconds covering five runners deep in the standings.

Mustapha Lhamzi simply ran away from the M50-54 field. His 5:43/mi average held up across 26.2 miles of Boston's famously uneven terrain — Heartbreak Hill included — and his 2:29:41 was in a different class from everyone behind him. His gender place actually slipped from 149th among men through the middle miles before he steadied and recovered to 293rd by the finish, a sign he ran his own race rather than chasing the pack around him. His split on the 40K-to-25.2M stretch ranked 154th among men in the field — still formidable at that late stage.

Behind Lhamzi, the real drama was a two-man duel for the podium. Gustavo Campiz and Martin Sirois ran nearly identical races, crossing in 2:35:28 and 2:35:39 respectively. Campiz was the steadier presence, holding a consistent position among men throughout. Sirois took the more aggressive line — sitting outside the top 1,000 among men at the opening checkpoint before reeling off one of the stronger second halves in the group, climbing from 1,034th among men to 653rd by the finish. Eleven seconds separated them at the line; Campiz held on.

Fourth-place Robert Rognli (2:36:20, 5:58/mi) was methodical and consistent, barely moving in the men's standings across the back half. Juan Carlos Cardona's 5th-place finish at 2:37:26 tells a wilder story: he was 410th among men early, faded dramatically past the halfway mark, then found his legs again for a strong closing stretch. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. Further back, the cluster from Nkhetheni Masupa (6th, 2:38:13) through Sergio Gonzalez Alava (7th, 2:38:15) was separated by just two seconds, and the five-runner logjam between 12th and 16th place — all finishing within 20 seconds — underscored how deep and competitive the M50-54 group was on a cool, breezy Patriots' Day in Boston.