Kaua'i Marathon Men: Toa Ota Defends in Near-Identical Time

• Ota wins again: The 22-year-old from Iwaki City crossed in 2:43:37 at 6:14/mi — just one second faster than his 2025 winning time of 2:43:38, holding the lead wire-to-wire.
• Crevier's late charge: The 54-year-old from Kihei ran the 2nd-fastest closing split (24.15 miles to the finish) in the men's field to move from 4th to 2nd, finishing in 3:07:12 — one second faster than his own 2nd-place time from 2025.
• Top-4 podium virtually unchanged: All four top finishers matched their 2025 places exactly, each finishing precisely one second faster than last year.
• Gulden's mid-race surge fades: The 23-year-old ran the 2nd-fastest men's split to the half, climbing to 2nd by mile 13.1, but faded to 4th by the finish in 3:08:35.

Toa Ota made it back-to-back at Kaua'i, and he did it with eerie precision. The 22-year-old from Iwaki City led at every checkpoint — gender place 1→1→1→1→1 — and posted the fastest men's split from 6.55 miles to the half, running 26.2 miles through 84°F heat and 69% humidity in 2:43:37. His 2025 winning time was 2:43:38. That's not a typo.

The battle for 2nd and 3rd played out in the second half. Paul Wells of Plano held 2nd through the halfway mark, but Dan Crevier — a 54-year-old from Kihei — had other plans. Crevier ran the 2nd-fastest closing segment in the men's field, sweeping from 4th to 2nd and finishing in 3:07:12. Wells held on for 3rd in 3:07:44, a 32-second gap between them. Jarrett Gulden had looked threatening — the 23-year-old posted the 2nd-fastest men's split to the half and surged to 2nd by mile 13.1 — but he faded over the back half to 4th in 3:08:35.

What makes this podium genuinely remarkable is the year-over-year continuity. Ota, Crevier, Wells, and Gulden finished 1st through 4th in 2025 as well, and each of them improved their time by exactly one second in 2026. Josef Ajram (5th, 3:20:45) and Koa Kam (6th, 3:21:21) rounded out the top six, with local Koloa runner James Lloyd 7th in 3:22:40 among 196 men who finished on the day.