Masters Men: Cutforth Controls from the Start

• Dave Cutforth won the Masters Men race in 3:56:57 (9:02/mi), leading from checkpoint to checkpoint without relinquishing his position once.
• Amrick Sandhu finished 2nd in 4:24:11 (10:05/mi), a gap of 27 minutes 14 seconds back.
• Cutforth posted the fastest split between 5K and 10K in the men's field — the sharpest stretch of his race.
• Sandhu's strongest segment came later: he ran the 2nd-fastest 20K-to-Half split in the men's field, a bright spot in an otherwise steady-but-distant effort.

With only two finishers in the Masters Men field, this was a race of contrasts rather than a crowded contest. Dave Cutforth of Tracy set the tone early, holding 1st from the very first checkpoint through the finish line on a mild Sacramento morning — 59°F, light wind, the kind of conditions that reward disciplined pacing.

Cutforth's 9:02/mi average was the engine of his victory, and his 5K-to-10K segment stood out as the fastest men's split across that stretch in the field. That early sharpness helped him build a lead that Amrick Sandhu of Sacramento never had a realistic chance to close. Sandhu slipped from 2nd to 4th in the men's standings by the 10K mark and never recovered those positions, eventually settling into 2nd among the Masters Men at the finish.

To his credit, Sandhu found another gear mid-race. His 20K-to-Half split was the 2nd-fastest among men in the field — a surge that showed what he was capable of when he hit his stride. At 10:05/mi for the full 26.2, he brought it home in 4:24:11, finishing 27 minutes and 14 seconds behind Cutforth. In a two-man Masters Men field, there's no hiding and no drafting off the pack — just two competitors running their own races against the clock and each other. Cutforth ran the cleaner one.