M70-74 at Boston: Amend Claims the Crown at 7:38 Pace

• Thomas Amend won the M70-74 group in 3:19:59 — a 7:38/mi average across 26.2 miles in Boston's cool, breezy conditions.
• David Butler pushed him hardest, finishing 2nd just 1 minute 21 seconds back at 3:21:20 — the closest margin on the podium.
• Jim Van Buskirk rounded out the podium in 3rd at 3:25:58, with 4th-place Steve Beasley a further 1:28 behind.
• The top 10 were separated by just 12 minutes, with 10th-place Steven Plakas crossing in 3:31:58 at 8:05/mi.

Thomas Amend set the standard in M70-74 on a cool, overcast Monday in Boston — 51°F, a modest 10 mph wind, and 32% humidity: about as forgiving as Patriot's Day gets. Running 7:38 per mile for the full marathon, Amend steadily climbed through the men's field across every checkpoint, moving from outside the top 9,000 men early on to finish among the top 8,629 men by the line. That kind of sustained forward momentum over 26.2 miles is the mark of a well-executed race.

David Butler made it interesting. He was actually tracking ahead of Amend through the early segments — sitting higher in the men's field at the 5K-to-10K mark — but Amend's consistency proved decisive in the second half. By the finish, Butler was 1:21 behind, a meaningful gap at this pace but close enough to make the M70-74 battle genuinely compelling. Jim Van Buskirk (Ontario) ran a strong closing stretch, logging one of the sharper late-race splits in the group on the 23M-to-24M segment, to secure 3rd in 3:25:58. Steve Beasley, also from Ontario, stayed within striking distance throughout and finished 4th in 3:27:26.

The depth in M70-74 across 281 finishers was remarkable. Six men broke 3:30, and the top 10 were packed within 12 minutes of each other — a testament to how competitive this age group has become at Boston. Aaron Grady (Colorado) and Rainer Schochat (Illinois) slotted in 6th and 7th at 3:29:12 and 3:29:56 respectively, each within a whisker of that 3:30 threshold. Further back, the 8:24/mi duo of Anthony Glaser and Emmanuel Carballeda Taboada finished 17th and 18th in near-identical times of 3:40:24 and 3:40:27 — separated by just three seconds.