M20-24: Jarrett Gulden Runs Away from a Warm Kaua'i Field

• Gulden wins in 3:08:35 (7:12/mi), more than 16 minutes clear of runner-up Andrei Makarchuk's 3:25:15.
• Makarchuk closed hard, posting the 8th-fastest split among the men from mile 24.15 to the finish — the strongest late-race leg in the M20-24 group.
• Six seconds separated 6th and 7th: Jacob Shew (4:18:02) edged Tristan Konieczny (4:18:03) in the tightest battle of the day — different finishes, not a tie.
• 17 finishers spread across nearly 3 hours and 11 minutes of finishing time, from Gulden's 3:08:35 to Andres Flores's 6:19:06.

Jarrett Gulden of Walpole, ME, put on a clinic in the 77°F Poipu humidity. Running 7:12 per mile across 26.2 miles in those conditions, he moved as high as 2nd among the men at the halfway checkpoint before settling into 4th by the finish line — a sign the field around him was competitive at the front, but within M20-24 he was simply in a different race. His 6.55-mile-to-half split was the 2nd-fastest among the men on that segment, signaling he went out with genuine intent and didn't just stumble into the lead.

Andrei Makarchuk, also 21, made the back half of the race his own. After running conservatively enough to sit 14th among the men at the halfway mark, he ground his way to 9th by the finish, and his 24.15-to-finish split was the 8th-fastest among the men in the entire field on that closing stretch — easily the best closing kick in the M20-24 group. His 3:25:15 was a comfortable 2nd place, with Dylan Paccione of Montgomery, TX, a distant 3rd in 3:52:13.

The mid-pack drama belonged to Shew and Konieczny. Both clocked 9:51/mi on average and both crossed in what rounds to 4:18:02 and 4:18:03 — one second apart after more than four hours of racing on a warm, humid morning on Kaua'i's south shore. Shew holds 6th, Konieczny 7th, and that's the order that stands.