M50-54: Levenson Dominates in the Cleveland Heat

• Jeremy Levenson won the M50-54 group in 1:31:49 (7:00/mi), finishing more than six minutes clear of runner-up Kevin Meyer.
• Eric Schultz and Zachary Guzy staged the closest battle of the day, separated by a single second — 1:40:52 to 1:40:53 — with Schultz holding 5th by the slimmest of margins.
• Levenson climbed from 133rd among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 87th by the final split, a relentless forward march through the field on a warm, humid morning.
• The M50-54 group drew 103 finishers, with a spread of more than 25 minutes between Levenson's winning time and 20th-place Avrohom Roth's 1:56:58.

Jeremy Levenson made this one look like a different race from everyone else's. Running 7:00/mile through 75°F heat and 68% humidity, the Pepper Pike 51-year-old was already pushing through the men's field by mid-race and kept right on going, moving from 133rd among men at the opening checkpoint to 87th by the time the course was done. His second-half split was the 70th-fastest among all women in the race — a useful benchmark for just how quickly he was moving in the back half. No one in the M50-54 group came close to answering.

Kevin Meyer (Chardon) and Chad Strong (Youngstown) settled into a tight tussle for the podium's lower steps. Meyer ran a steady if unspectacular race — his position among the men's field barely shifted after the first 5K — while Strong went the other direction, opening fast (72nd among men early) before fading to 157th by the finish. Both landed within 19 seconds of each other, Meyer at 1:37:52 and Strong at 1:38:11, with Keiichi Kataoka of Englewood a further 1:10 back in fourth after a strong 10K-to-12.6M segment that was the 160th-fastest among women in the field.

The most gripping finish of the day belonged to Eric Schultz and Zachary Guzy, both 50 years old, both clocking 1:40:52 and 1:40:53 respectively. Schultz earned 5th by a single second — timing doesn't lie. He'd been climbing all race, moving from 355th among men at the first checkpoint to 216th by the end, and his closing segment from 12.6 miles to the finish was the 94th-fastest women's split in the field. Guzy was right on his heels the whole way, but a second is a second.