Long Beach Half Marathon 2025: Matthew Underwood Owns M55-59

• Matthew Underwood wins in 1:22:41 (6:18/mi), more than two minutes clear of runner-up Rene Delgado (1:24:50).
• Feliciano Villegas faded from 117th among men at the midpoint to 192nd by the finish — the most notable slide in the top five.
• Rene Delgado ran the strongest closing leg of the top finishers, posting the 70th-fastest 10.8M-to-finish split among men to move from 102nd to 92nd in the men's field.
• Roger Booth and Michael Sullivan finished just six seconds apart — 1:37:23 and 1:37:29 — in 9th and 10th, with Eric Huss (1:37:17, 8th) just ahead.

In a field of 228 in M55-59, Matthew Underwood ran away from the competition from the start. His 6:18/mi pace held up across all three checkpoints, and while he drifted slightly in the men's standings between miles 5.5 and 10.8 — from 75th to 62nd to 68th among men — his grip on the M55-59 lead was never in question. At age 59, right at the top of the bracket, Underwood's 1:22:41 was the class of the field by a wide margin.

Rene Delgado (1:24:50, 6:28/mi) was the clear runner-up, but the more interesting story in his race is how he finished it. After sitting 102nd among men at the 10.8-mile mark, he ran the 70th-fastest closing split in the men's field to surge to 92nd — a meaningful push through a crowded late race. Russell Bowers (1:28:23, 6:45/mi) held 3rd comfortably, and Julio Herrarte (1:30:29, 6:54/mi) climbed steadily all day, moving from 212th among men at the first checkpoint to 177th at the finish.

The story at the other end of the top five belongs to Feliciano Villegas. He was running 117th among men through 5.5 miles — well inside the top half of the men's field — but faded to 192nd by the tape, good for 5th in M55-59 in 1:31:08 (6:57/mi). Behind him, the 6th-through-10th cluster was tightly packed between 1:35:30 (Martin R. Mata) and 1:37:29 (Michael Sullivan), with Jens Meggers (1:36:01), Eric Huss (1:37:17), Roger Booth (1:37:23), and Sullivan separated by just under two minutes across five places.