F20-24 Half Marathon: Yilin Wu Runs Away with It at 4:58 Pace

• Yilin Wu won the F20-24 race in 1:05:13 — a scorching 4:58/mi average that moved her from 12th to 8th among all women by the finish.
• The podium gap was real: runner-up Makayla Gonzalez finished in 1:10:53, a full 5 minutes 40 seconds back; third-place Nicole Greyer crossed in 1:12:16.
• Second half surges: Grace Wallace (4th, 1:15:31) and Lily Tong (5th, 1:17:46) both made notable moves on the 5.5M–10.8M segment, posting the 29th- and 38th-fastest women's splits on that stretch respectively.
• Close battle at the back of the top ten: Ali Evans (8th, 1:20:55), Lizzie Ramey (9th, 1:21:05), and Cate Whitehouse (10th, 1:21:31) were separated by just 36 seconds across three spots.

Yilin Wu, 24, from San Marino, simply ran a different race than the rest of the F20-24 field. At 4:58 per mile across 13.1 miles on a cool, humid Long Beach morning, she didn't just win — she put the race away decisively. Her second-half push was equally sharp, producing the 8th-fastest women's split on the 5.5-to-10.8-mile segment in the entire women's field. That's not a runner who faded; that's one who held the hammer down.

Behind Wu, Makayla Gonzalez (20, Santa Maria) and Nicole Greyer (24, Los Angeles) ran strong races in their own right — 1:10:53 and 1:12:16, averaging 5:24 and 5:31 per mile respectively — but the margin to first was never really in question. Gonzalez's 19th-fastest women's split on the middle segment and Greyer's 21st show both were genuinely competitive within the broader women's field, even if the top step was out of reach.

The most interesting positional battle played out in places four and five. Grace Wallace traveled from Seattle to run 1:15:31, climbing from 41st to 31st among women in the back half. Lily Tong of Sierra Madre matched that energy, moving from 54th to 39th among women over the same stretch to finish 5th in 1:17:46. Both runners clearly saved something for the second half and delivered. Kayla Estrada (6th, 1:18:21), Melissa Owens (7th, 1:20:02), and the trio of Evans, Ramey, and Whitehouse rounded out the top ten in a tight cluster spanning just over 36 seconds — solid racing across a deep 528-finisher field.