Kaua'i Marathon F30-34: Saville Runs Down the Field for a Convincing Win

• Marie Saville won the F30-34 group in 3:54:05 (8:56/mi), finishing more than 8 minutes clear of 2nd place.
• Jessica Klimek posted the fastest women's split from the Half to 22.25 miles — an extraordinary mid-race surge after sitting as low as 120th among women at the halfway checkpoint.
• Alyssa Mencini climbed from 28th to 9th among women across the race, closing with the 6th-fastest women's split from 24.15 miles to the finish.
• Five and six, Anna Hall and April Doyley, crossed within 25 seconds of each other (4:23:34 and 4:23:59) after trading positions throughout the second half.

Marie Saville of Honolulu owned this race from the start. Running at 8:56 per mile in 77°F humidity, she climbed from 11th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 7th by the halfway mark — and held that position with authority the rest of the way. Her split from 6.55 miles to the half was the 8th-fastest among all women in the field, which tells you she wasn't just ahead of her F30-34 peers; she was moving through the broader women's race. The 8-minute gap she built over Kelsey Heydon by the finish line was never seriously threatened.

Behind Saville, Kelsey Heydon of Kailua ran a remarkably consistent race to claim 2nd in 4:02:02, posting the 9th-fastest women's split in that same early middle stretch. Alyssa Mencini, traveling from Gilbert, AZ, made the most dramatic move of anyone in the group — sitting 28th among women after 6.55 miles, she ground her way forward all day and locked up 3rd in 4:04:08 with the 6th-fastest women's closing split from 24.15 miles in.

The most striking subplot of the day belonged to Jessica Klimek. After what appears to have been a very difficult stretch through the first half — dropping as far back as 120th among women — she rebounded with the single fastest women's split from the Half to 22.25 miles in the entire field. That surge carried her back to 4th in F30-34 with a 4:14:54 finish. It's a race of two very different halves, and the Kaua'i heat likely had something to say about how those played out across all 22 finishers in the group.