M70-74 at Cleveland: Keibel Holds Off Horvath in a Hard-Fought 70s Showdown

• Martin Keibel, 74, wins the M70-74 group in 4:10:30 (9:33/mi), the only finisher to break 4:15 in a field of 11.
• Gap at the top: Keibel beat Daniel Horvath by 3 minutes 16 seconds — tight enough to matter, wide enough to be decisive.
• Third and fourth were a photo finish: Yang Qin (4:51:16) edged Darrell Nagy (4:51:50) by just 34 seconds after nearly five hours of racing.
• The field spread wide: from Keibel's 9:33/mi to Joe Palencik Jr.'s 14:50/mi, the M70-74 group covered more than two hours of elapsed time across 11 finishers.

On a warm Cleveland morning — 75°F, 68% humidity, and a steady 8 mph wind — the M70-74 group asked a lot of eleven men willing to run 26.2 miles at an age when most people have long since retired the racing flats. Martin Keibel, 74, from Manchester, CT, answered best. His 4:10:30 at a 9:33/mi clip was a commanding performance in conditions that punished anyone who went out too hard.

Keibel's race had an interesting shape. He moved well through the men's field in the early and middle portions, climbing from 466th among men at 10K all the way to 391st by the half — a surge of 75 places. The back half told a different story: he faded relative to the broader men's field, sliding back to 504th by the finish. That's not a collapse; that's what 75°F humidity does to a 74-year-old running sub-10-minute miles. He still won M70-74 by more than three minutes.

Daniel Horvath, 73, from just down the road in Brunswick, OH, was the steadiest mover in the group. He climbed consistently through the men's field from start to finish — 625th at 10K, 537th at the line — never fading, never surging dramatically, just grinding. His 4:13:46 (9:41/mi) earned him a clear second place. Behind them, Yang Qin and Darrell Nagy waged a quiet battle that lasted nearly five hours, with Qin's stronger late segment (the 19.1M–22.5M stretch was among his best relative efforts) proving just enough — a 34-second margin after 26.2 miles.

Charles Cline rounded out the top five in 4:58:57, finishing with a strong closing segment between 22.5 miles and the line. The back half of the field — Steve Sansola through Joe Palencik Jr. — ranged from 5:28 to 6:28, a reminder that in M70-74, simply finishing a marathon in the Cleveland heat is its own achievement.