Long Beach Half Marathon F55-59: Powell dominates while 191 others chase her home

• Kelly Powell wins in 1:37:23 (7:26/mi), more than 12 minutes clear of the field — the most commanding margin on the F55-59 podium.
• Kyoko Furukawa takes 2nd in 1:49:31; Charlene Trinh claims 3rd in 1:51:48 — just 2:17 separating them.
• Costanza Genoese Zerbi (4th, 1:53:38) and Anna Frescas Chung (5th, 1:54:57) round out the top five within 90 seconds of each other.
• The top 20 spans from 1:37:23 to 2:09:26 — a 32-minute window across 192 finishers in the F55-59 field.

Kelly Powell from San Diego came to Long Beach and made this race look like a solo time trial. Running 7:26 per mile across 13.1 miles, she crossed in 1:37:23 — more than 12 minutes ahead of the next finisher. Her moves tell the story of a controlled, relentless effort: she climbed from 63rd among women at the first checkpoint to 54th by 10.8 miles, then posted the 48th-fastest women's split on that final stretch to the finish. There was no late fade, no wobble — just a clean, wire-to-wire statement.

Behind her, the race for the podium had some real texture. Kyoko Furukawa of Los Angeles held 2nd in 1:49:31, but her 5.5M–10.8M split ranked 237th among women — a sign that the middle miles cost her. Charlene Trinh of Huntington Beach closed the gap with the 251st-fastest women's second-half split to finish 3rd in 1:51:48, making up ground in the back half. The gap between them at the line was 2:17, but Trinh was clearly the one gaining momentum.

Fourth and fifth played out in similar fashion. Costanza Genoese Zerbi (Long Beach's own, 1:53:38) drifted back through the women's field from the 5.5M mark onward, while Anna Frescas Chung of Claremont (1:54:57) showed a comparable fade in the second half. Anne Kinney (6th, 1:55:09) and Kim Ho (7th, 1:55:29) finished within 20 seconds of Chung, making spots 5 through 8 a genuine cluster — all four finishers between 1:54:57 and 1:55:34. Tanya Buchanan of Covina, at 59 the oldest in the top ten, finished 9th in 1:57:58 to close out a strong upper tier in a field of 192.