Cleveland Half Marathon: Peggy Stimac Dominates F65-69 with a Sub-1:40 Effort

• Peggy Stimac won the F65-69 age group in 1:38:37 (7:31/mi), finishing more than 26 minutes ahead of runner-up Mary Dengler.
• Stimac climbed from 72nd among women at the opening checkpoint all the way to 37th among women at the finish — a relentless, race-long surge.
• Mary Dengler (2:05:32) and Kathleen Kaye (2:07:15) separated the 2nd and 3rd spots by just 1 minute and 43 seconds, the tightest battle on the podium.
• Maureen Scullin made the most dramatic move in the group, charging from 1,989th among women early in the race all the way to 1,066th by the finish.

Peggy Stimac didn't just win the F65-69 age group at the Cleveland Half — she redefined what the race looked like for the field. Running 7:31 per mile in 75°F heat and 68% humidity, she crossed in 1:38:37, a time that would turn heads in any age group. Her progression through the women's field told the full story: she entered the 10K-to-12.6-mile stretch already climbing, and her 35th-fastest women's split on that segment confirmed she was still accelerating deep into the race. By the finish, she had moved 35 places forward among all women from her opening checkpoint.

Behind her, the race for the podium was genuinely competitive. Mary Dengler of New Albany ran a steady 9:35/mi to claim 2nd in 2:05:32, while Jacksonville's Kathleen Kaye, 68, pushed hard enough to post the fastest women's split among the three of them in the 5K-to-10K stretch — though Dengler ultimately held her off by 1:43. Kaye's finish at 2:07:15 was a strong result for the oldest athlete on the podium.

The most remarkable journey through the field belonged to Maureen Scullin of Cleveland. She began the race buried near the back of the women's field but ran herself all the way into 4th in the age group, climbing nearly 1,000 places among women between her opening checkpoint and the finish line. That kind of steady, grinding progression over 13.1 miles — especially in the heat — is its own kind of story. All 22 finishers in the F65-69 group completed the course, representing a broad range of paces from Stimac's front-of-pack 7:31 to the back of the field past 15:00/mi.