M35-39: Grogan Dominates in Cleveland's May Heat

• Mark Grogan (36, Bay Village) won the M35-39 group in 1:15:49 — a 5:47/mi pace that left runner-up Jacob Farren more than six and a half minutes back.
• The gap from 1st to 2nd was 6:34 — the largest margin between any two consecutive podium finishers, making Grogan's victory the clearest statement of the day.
• Kristyen Tomcik (36) was the biggest mover on the leaderboard, climbing from 75th among men at the 5K mark all the way to 39th by the finish — a charge fueled by the 32nd-fastest split among men on the back half.
• Brett Merillat and Mike Garrard finished 7th and 8th in 1:28:52 and 1:28:53 — one second apart across 13.1 miles in 75°F heat and 68% humidity.

Mark Grogan made this one look almost easy. Running 5:47 per mile through a warm, humid Cleveland morning, the Bay Village 36-year-old moved as high as 9th among men midway through the race before settling 10th in the men's field at the line — and comfortably first in the M35-39 group by a margin that nobody came close to threatening. His 10K-to-12.6-mile stretch was the 9th-fastest men's split across that segment in the entire field, a sign he wasn't just surviving the conditions — he was racing through them.

Jacob Farren (1:22:23) and Brian Kovach (1:27:01) rounded out the podium, with Kovach posting the 42nd-fastest men's split on the 5K-to-10K segment to hold his position. Fourth place went to Kristyen Tomcik, whose race told a different kind of story: buried in 75th among men at the first checkpoint, he reeled off the 32nd-fastest men's split on the second half to climb 36 spots and finish 39th in the men's field overall — the most dramatic move in the M35-39 group all day.

Down in the thick of the mid-pack battle, the humidity made every second count. James Kulway (1:28:18) and Michael Olson (1:28:26) were separated by just eight seconds at 5th and 6th, while Merillat and Garrard — both from the Northfield area — essentially raced each other to a one-second verdict across 13.1 miles. In a field of 297 M35-39 finishers, those kinds of margins are what the age group was built for.