Women's 18K: Randrup runs down the lead and holds it to the finish

• Kristina Randrup, 26, Seattle won the women's race in 1:46:47 (9:33/mi avg), taking the lead on the KT 22→Siberia segment and never relinquishing it.
• Sidney Mcintosh, 18, Truckee ran the fastest women's closing split (Siberia→Finish) to claw back from 3rd to 2nd, finishing 1:06 behind Randrup at 1:47:53.
• Lisa Musacchio rounded out the podium in 1:48:21 — the top three separated by just 94 seconds across a 16.8K mountain course above 6,200 feet.
• Lucinda Kolpa ran a locked-in 4th-place wire-to-wire, and Marta Darby, 42, Truckee was the standout veteran, placing 15th in the women's field.

Randrup didn't lead from the gun. Mcintosh — a local from Truckee — held the top spot early, with Musacchio and Kolpa running in close order behind her. It was on the KT 22→Siberia segment that Randrup made her move, posting the fastest women's split on that stretch to vault from 2nd to 1st. At altitude between 6,200 and 8,000 feet, where the air thins and the climbs bite hardest, that's exactly where races are won or lost — and Randrup chose her moment well.

Mcintosh wasn't done, though. After slipping to 3rd, the 18-year-old from Truckee produced the fastest women's closing split from Siberia to the finish line, surging back past Musacchio to claim 2nd at 1:47:53. It's a remarkable result for someone who presumably knows this terrain well — but 1:06 was simply too much ground to recover against Randrup's 9:33/mi pace over the full course.

Musacchio held her composure to take 3rd in 1:48:21, backed by the 2nd-fastest women's split on KT 22→Siberia — the same stretch where Randrup surged. Kolpa was equally consistent, never leaving 4th place from start to finish. Behind the top five, the women's field of 221 spread across a wide range of finishes, with Diana Mendoza traveling from Orizaba, Mexico to go 7th in 1:59:13, and Darby representing the local Truckee contingent with a strong 15th at 2:05:26.