M40-44 Marathon: Wosene Runs Away With It

• Tesfaye Wosene, age 44, wins M40-44 in 2:31:58 (5:48/mi) — nearly 20 minutes clear of the field.
• Tightest battle of the day: John Cronise (4th, 2:57:42) and Andrew Nguyen (5th, 2:57:45) — separated by just 3 seconds after 26.2 miles.
• Late charge: Efrain Gonzalez moved from 56th among the men at 5.5M all the way to 36th by the finish, posting the 20th-fastest split in the field from mile 20 to the line.
• Deep field: 312 finishers in M40-44, with 20 men breaking 3:11.

Tesfaye Wosene, 44, turned in one of the day's most dominant performances, crossing in 2:31:58 at a 5:48/mi clip to win M40-44 by 19 minutes and 28 seconds. He came through the opening miles near the front of the men's field — sitting 2nd among men through the early going — before settling into 5th by halfway and holding that position to the finish. Along the way he posted the 5th-fastest split among the women on the 5.5M-to-13.1M stretch, a mark that underscores just how fast he was moving through the middle miles in warm, humid conditions (72°F, 73% humidity off the Long Beach coast).

Behind him, the battle for second through fifth played out over a much longer stretch of the course. Efrain Gonzalez of Long Beach ran a composed race, working his way steadily through traffic — from 56th among men at the first checkpoint to 36th at the finish — to claim 2nd in M40-44 in 2:51:26. Saul Palacios (3rd, 2:54:01) followed a similar trajectory, moving up from 62nd to 45th among the men and closing with the 40th-fastest split in the field from mile 20 home.

The most gripping subplot was the four-way scrap for 4th. John Cronise arrived at the race from Portland and ran aggressively early, surging from 73rd among men to 36th by the halfway mark before fading back to 63rd — but his 27th-fastest mid-race split (5.5M to 13.1M) had built just enough of a cushion. Andrew Nguyen, also of Long Beach, took the opposite approach, starting conservatively at 106th and charging home with the 30th-fastest closing split to finish 5th in 2:57:45 — just 3 seconds behind Cronise's 2:57:42. Viet Nguyen (6th, 2:58:11) and Evan Stark (7th, 3:00:02) rounded out a competitive top ten, with eight men finishing inside 3:01.