Women's Marathon: Paige Moore Edges a Fierce Late Charge to Win Long Beach

• Moore wins in 2:55:13 (6:41/mi), holding off a hard-closing Salena Gallardo Dominguez by 1:10 in a lead that changed hands multiple times.
• Hope Stark and Sophia Carcamo finished 3rd and 4th in 2:58:10 and 2:58:11 — separated by a single second after 26.2 miles — with both running their way up from outside the top ten.
• Megan Hansen ran the 3rd-fastest women's split on the opening half (5.5M→13.1M) and sat 2nd at the midpoint, before fading to 5th by the finish in 3:03:56.
• 1,346 women finished on a warm Long Beach morning — 72°F, 73% humidity, with a light breeze that offered little relief.

Paige Moore, 24, from Rancho Palos Verdes, ran one of the more dramatic women's races Long Beach has seen in recent memory. She moved between 1st and 2nd four times across the checkpoints — sitting 2nd early, taking the lead through the middle stretch on the back of the 2nd-fastest women's split from 5.5M to 13.1M, dropping briefly to 2nd again at mile 20, then reclaiming the top spot to cross in 2:55:13. That kind of lead-swapping story usually ends in heartbreak, but Moore had the legs when it mattered.

The runner trading blows with her for much of the race wasn't the eventual runner-up. Megan Hansen, 27, ran aggressively early, posting the 3rd-fastest women's split on the first half and sitting 2nd at the midpoint — but she faded to 7th by mile 20 and finished 5th in 3:03:56. The athlete who came roaring through instead was Salena Gallardo Dominguez, 30, of Redondo Beach, who sat 5th at mile 20 and then ran the 3rd-fastest women's closing split (20M→finish) to surge all the way to 2nd in 2:56:23. She closed the gap considerably but couldn't quite catch Moore.

Behind them, the race for 3rd was a genuine battle of attrition. Hope Stark, 22, from Colorado Springs, and 19-year-old Sophia Carcamo of Clayton climbed from 10th and 12th respectively at the halfway point, both running among the fastest women's splits from 13.1M to 20M — Carcamo 3rd-fastest, Stark 4th-fastest on that segment. They arrived at the finish line essentially together: Stark in 2:58:10, Carcamo in 2:58:11. One second across 26.2 miles. Keely Berger, 24, rounded out the top six in 3:04:35, followed by Christian Espinoza in 3:06:03 and Brooke Decker in 3:07:35.