Cleveland Marathon 5K — F50-54: Westerman wins with room to spare

• Heather Westerman took the F50-54 title in 25:06 (8:05/mi), finishing 22 seconds clear of the field's closest challengers.
• Leah Kilbane and Judy Gron crossed in an identical 25:28 (8:12/mi) — but the timing strip separated them, with Kilbane earning 2nd and Gron 3rd by the narrowest of margins.
• A 2:38 gap separates the podium from 4th-place Tina Vanderpol (27:44), making the top three a class of their own on the day.
• 55 women finished in the F50-54 group, with times ranging from 25:06 to well past 43 minutes — a testament to the spread of the field on a humid, breezy Cleveland morning.

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Heather Westerman, 53, from Murrysville, PA, was in command from the start. Her 8:05/mi average was the sharpest pace in the F50-54 field, and she crossed the line in 25:06 — a margin comfortable enough that the race for 2nd and 3rd was a story entirely its own.

That battle was something else. Leah Kilbane of Avon and Judy Gron of Medina — both 54 years old, both running 8:12/mi — posted the exact same displayed time of 25:28. The timing system, reading finer than the clock face, separated them: Kilbane takes silver, Gron bronze. Call it a razor's edge, not a tie.

Behind the podium, Tina Vanderpol (27:44) from Abbotsford, BC ran a solid 4th at 8:56/mi, but the gap back to 3rd was nearly two and a half minutes — enough that the podium had long been decided before she crossed. Parthenia Croskey rounded out the top five in 29:06, and the field spread steadily from there, with the 67°F humidity and 15 mph wind off Lake Erie making every minute earned feel a little harder than the clock suggests.