Cleveland Half Marathon F30-34: Stier Dominates at 6:08 Pace in the Heat

• Madeline Stier won the F30-34 age group in 1:20:18 (6:08/mi), holding 2nd among all women from start to finish.
• Abbey Warth was a clear runner-up in 1:24:13 — nearly 4 minutes back — while mirroring Stier's trajectory with the 3rd-fastest women's split on the 5K–10K segment.
• Ellen Kuerbitz was the biggest mover on the back half, climbing from 23rd to 16th among women between 10K and 12.6 miles to lock up 4th in the age group.
• The gap from 3rd to 4th was substantial — Marissa Ward's 1:30:51 to Kuerbitz's 1:32:59 — with a tighter but still meaningful spread through the rest of the top 10.

Seventy-five degrees, 68% humidity, and an 8 mph wind off the lake — not a day that invites fast times. Stier ignored the memo. Her 6:08/mi average was the performance of the morning in the F30-34 field, and she backed it up with the 2nd-fastest women's split on the 5K–10K stretch, suggesting she was already running away from the field before the race was half over. She held 2nd among all women at every checkpoint and never wavered.

Warth ran a disciplined, nearly identical tactical race — 3rd among women at every split, 3rd-fastest on that same 5K–10K segment — and finished a comfortable 3:55 behind Stier. The two of them were in a different race from the rest of the age group. Ward came in 3rd at 1:30:51 and 6:56/mi, having faded slightly through the women's field across the second half after a stronger opening 10K.

The most interesting movement in the top five belonged to Kuerbitz and Haley Serna, both of whom ran negative-split-style second halves relative to the field. Kuerbitz, the local from Cleveland, went from 23rd to 16th among women between 10K and 12.6 miles — posting the 13th-fastest women's split on that segment — to claim 4th in 1:32:59. Serna made a similar move, rising from 44th to 32nd among women to finish 5th in 1:36:41. In conditions that wore many runners down, those two were just getting warmed up.