M60-64: Ken Schuch Owns Chicago at 6:36 Pace

• Ken Schuch won the M60-64 group in 1:26:30 — a 6:36/mi clip that put 89 seconds of daylight between him and runner-up Aaron Barnhart.
• Aaron Barnhart (Evanston) was the closest challenger at 1:27:59, posting a strong 5K→8K segment before settling into second.
• Tom Bruursema and Jim Figler staged the race's best battle for the final podium spot, finishing 1:36:15 and 1:36:33 — just 18 seconds apart after 13.1 miles.
• A field of 119 finishers in M60-64 made this one of the day's deeper age groups on a near-perfect morning: 60°F, clear skies, and a light 10 mph breeze off the lake.

Ken Schuch came to Chicago and made it look almost unfair. Running 6:36 per mile across 13.1 miles, the 60-year-old Chicagoan was never seriously threatened. His move data tells the story of a runner who drifted slightly through mid-race traffic before reasserting himself — he held his men's position steady into the back half and crossed in 1:26:30, a time that would turn heads in any age group.

Aaron Barnhart gave chase from Evanston and ran a disciplined race of his own at 6:43/mi, finishing in 1:27:59. The gap to Schuch — 1:29 — was real but not embarrassing; Barnhart was simply racing a man in excellent form. Behind him, the next finisher didn't arrive until 1:36:15, which tells you the top two were in a different gear entirely.

That third-place battle, though, deserves its own mention. Tom Bruursema (Reed City, MI) and Jim Figler (Orchard Park, NY) ran nearly identical races — 7:21 and 7:22 per mile respectively — and Bruursema edged it by 18 seconds. Figler actually ran the strongest 15K-to-finish split of the two, climbing from 704th to 633rd among men in that final stretch, but it wasn't quite enough to close the gap Bruursema had built. David Schaub rounded out the top five in 1:38:25, while Carlo Basile, Loreto Arzola, and Dave Wilcoxen bunched tightly between 1:41:14 and 1:42:01 — three runners separated by just 47 seconds for positions six through eight.