F25-29: Hansen holds on as Brown's late surge falls just short

• Megan Hansen (27, Menifee) won F25-29 in 2:18:54 (5:18/mi) — the third-fastest women's split from miles 5.5 to 13.1 helped her control the race despite fading in the women's field late.
• Kayla Brown (25, Trabuco Canyon) posted the fastest finish time in the group — 2:18:04 at 5:16/mi — yet placed 3rd, having lost too much ground in the opening half to fully cash in her closing speed.
• Ingrid Sanchez (29, Los Angeles) climbed steadily all race long, moving from 19th to 13th among women and landing 2nd in F25-29 in 2:24:33 (5:31/mi).
• A field of 350 F25-29 finishers made this one of the day's deepest women's cohorts, with the top three all breaking 2:25 under 72°F and 73% humidity.

The headline result in F25-29 carries a twist: the fastest raw time didn't win. Kayla Brown crossed in 2:18:04 — a 5:16/mi effort and the sixth-fastest women's split on the 5.5-to-13.1-mile stretch — but her early positioning cost her. She ran as high as 1st among women through the opening miles, slipped to 4th by the halfway mark, and finished 7th among women overall. The time was brilliant; the placement tells the rest of the story.

Megan Hansen, meanwhile, was the steadier force where it counted. Sitting 3rd among women from the gun through the midpoint, she ran the third-fastest women's split on that same 5.5-to-13.1 stretch and absorbed the late shuffle in the women's field — dropping to 8th among women by the finish — while still banking enough of a cushion to take the F25-29 title in 2:18:54. The 50-second gap between her finish time and Brown's is the margin Hansen built and Brown couldn't fully close.

Ingrid Sanchez, 29, from Los Angeles, told a different kind of story: a patient, progressive race. She started 19th among women, moved to 14th at the half, and finished 13th — the 11th-fastest women's split from 5.5 to 13.1 miles powering her climb. Her 2:24:33 locked up second in F25-29 by more than six minutes over fourth-place Amie Garcia (2:36:29, 5:58/mi). Garcia's 2:36:29 is notable in its own right — it would have challenged the women's course record of 2:35:50 set by Maria Trujillo in 1991 in a different era, and it still earned a comfortable fourth. Behind them, Marin Halvorsen (2:41:22), Brenna Vallejos (2:40:04), and Ashley Jimenez (2:41:01) traded places through the back half in a tight cluster that only separated at the line.