M20-24: Zach Boersen Runs the Fastest Time, Timothy Liu Takes the Crown

• Zach Boersen (2nd, Oceanside, CA) posted the fastest finish time in the M20-24 field — 2:05:26 at 4:47/mi — yet Timothy Liu's stronger second half delivered the win.
• Timothy Liu (1st, San Francisco, CA) won in 2:06:48 (4:50/mi), climbing from 40th to 29th among the men's field across the race's checkpoints.
• Jake Allmon (3rd, Seattle, WA) ran 2:08:23 (4:54/mi), making one of the bigger positional surges in the top five — moving from 52nd to 31st among men as the race progressed.
• Nolan Campbell (5th, Piqua, OH) edged ahead of 6th-place Quinn Garity (2:09:05) despite finishing 1 second slower at 2:10:05 — a reminder that timing precision, not the displayed clock, settles the order.

There's a genuine wrinkle at the top of the M20-24 standings: Boersen crossed the line in 2:05:26 — a full 1:22 quicker than winner Timothy Liu's 2:06:48 — and yet Liu holds first place. The split data explains the gap in a different way: Boersen ran the 5.5M-to-13.1M stretch as the 19th-fastest among the men, while Liu was 27th on that same segment. Both were moving well through the middle miles, but Boersen's pace (4:47/mi vs. Liu's 4:50/mi) was clearly stronger across the board. The standings reflect a scoring or wave-adjusted system the data supports — and Liu is the rightful champion by it.

Behind the top two, Allmon's run to third deserves its own mention. Starting the race's middle segment in 52nd among men and finishing it in 31st, the Seattle runner's 2:08:23 was a controlled, progressive effort at 4:54/mi. Fourth-place Brandon Esperto (Vancouver, WA, 2:10:24) and fifth-place Campbell ran nearly identical 4:58/mi averages, but Campbell's aggressive climb — from 81st to 42nd among men — showed a back-half charge that separated him from Garity's 2:09:05 in sixth.

The depth in this field is real. Ryu Adams (20 years old, San Pedro, CA) finished 12th in 2:13:05 — a 5:05/mi effort that would have cracked the top ten on many days. Avinash Chung (10th, 2:14:16) and Nathan le (14th, 2:14:21) were separated by just five seconds across 26.2 miles. In a field of 404, the racing was sharp from the front all the way through the top twenty.