Boston M55-59: Sugathadasa Runs 2:36:32 to Take the Age Group

• Gamini Sugathadasa won the M55-59 group in 2:36:32 (5:58/mi), finishing 1 minute 25 seconds clear of second place.
• Vivian Foley ran the strongest second half of the top three, climbing from outside the top 1,400 among women at 5K all the way to 893rd by the finish — a steady, relentless build.
• Yusheng Ni took third in 2:40:49 but ran in reverse — sitting 1,138th among women early before drifting back through the middle miles, finishing 1,260th among women despite holding M55-59 bronze.
• Five men in the M55-59 group broke 2:45, and positions 5 and 6 — Salvador Lopez Diaz De Rada (2:44:33) and Daniel Coates (2:44:54) — were separated by just 21 seconds.

Gamini Sugathadasa owned this race from the front. He was already well up the men's field at the first checkpoint and, while the middle miles saw him drift slightly in the broader men's standings — a natural consequence of the Boston course's punishing Newton hills — he closed hard, recovering from his low point around the halfway mark to finish 746th among men. At 5:58 per mile over 26.2 miles in 51°F and a 10 mph headwind, that's a performance with no slack in it.

Behind him, Vivian Foley ran the textbook negative-split race. Starting conservatively — 1,410th among women through 5K — she picked off runners methodically at every checkpoint: 1,305th, then 1,102nd, then 994th, then 917th, landing at 893rd at the finish. That kind of sustained forward momentum over the second half of a marathon, especially on a course that breaks many runners after Heartbreak Hill, is genuinely impressive. Her 2:37:57 earned her second in M55-59 by 1:25.

Yusheng Ni's race told a different story. He went out in a solid position among the women's field but lost ground through the middle stretch before stabilizing and recovering somewhat over the final miles. Third place in 2:40:49 was the result — competitive, but with a shape that suggests the middle miles cost him. Paul Sadler in fourth (2:42:13) ran a similar pattern, fading deep into the women's standings by mid-race before steadying late. The top four in M55-59 were separated by just 6 minutes 41 seconds across a field of 1,491 finishers — a sharp, tightly contested age group at one of the sport's most demanding venues.