Long Beach Half Marathon M60-64: Graves Edges Romero in a Tight Battle at the Top

• Richard Graves (1:33:20, 7:07/mi) won the M60-64 race, holding off Michael Romero by just 27 seconds.
• Michael Romero (1:33:47, 7:09/mi) ran a strong second, with Gary Poage completing the podium in 1:36:33.
• Jesus Hernandez posted the most dramatic mid-race surge, rocketing from 203rd to 70th among men on the middle segment before fading — his 34th-fastest split on the 5.5M–10.8M stretch was the standout individual segment in the M60-64 field.
• 151 men finished in M60-64, with the top 20 all breaking 2:00.

Richard Graves, 60, from Long Beach itself, made the most of his home course. Running at a 7:07/mi clip, he steadily moved through the men's field — from 258th to 228th — and kept his foot on the gas in the second half, posting the 228th-fastest men's split on the closing stretch. It was enough to hold off Torrance's Michael Romero, who tracked him almost identically through the race at 7:09/mi, moving from 262nd to 238th. Twenty-seven seconds separated them at the line — a gap earned, not gifted.

Gary Poage, 64, from Yorba Linda, rounded out the podium in 1:36:33 (7:22/mi), finishing nearly three minutes back of Romero but well clear of fourth. At 64, he was the oldest athlete on the podium — a detail worth noting in a group where age range matters.

The most electric story of the race belonged to Jesus Hernandez of Los Angeles. His middle segment — 5.5 miles to 10.8 miles — was the 34th-fastest men's split across the entire field on that stretch, a blistering move that carried him from 203rd all the way up to 70th. But the effort came at a price: he faded to 325th by the finish, ultimately crossing in 1:37:18 (7:25/mi) for fourth place. It was a race of two very different halves.

Darrell Cross (1:38:31) rounded out the top five, while Gino Mendoza (1:43:03), Luis Gasca (1:45:08), and David Daigle (1:45:37) filled out a tight sixth-through-eighth. In a 151-man field where every finisher in the top 20 broke two hours, the M60-64 group delivered some of the most competitive racing of the morning.