M30-34 Marathon: Bryce de Venecia Runs Away with It in Long Beach

• de Venecia wins in 2:30:43 (5:45/mi), nearly five minutes clear of runner-up Joshua Ehinger's 2:35:35.
• Dakota Kruczynski stormed home: ranked 47th among men at the first checkpoint, he clawed all the way to 12th by the finish — the biggest mover in the top 10.
• Tight battle for 8th–10th: Angel Mendoza (2:53:56), Keith Luu (2:53:58), and Christopher Le (2:54:21) were separated by just 25 seconds across three places.
• Sub-3:00 club: 17 of the top 20 in M30-34 broke three hours on a warm, humid Long Beach morning — 72°F with 73% humidity made every minute earned.

Bryce de Venecia (Chicago, IL) was the class of the M30-34 field from start to finish. He moved through the men's field fluidly — sitting 3rd at the first checkpoint, drifting briefly to 6th at the halfway point, then driving back to 4th by 20 miles before closing hard enough to post the 5th-fastest men's split on the final 20M-to-finish stretch. His 5:45/mi average across 26.2 miles on a humid October morning is a commanding performance, and the 4:52 margin over Ehinger was never seriously in doubt down the stretch.

Joshua Ehinger (Corona, CA) ran a disciplined 2:35:35 at 5:56/mi to claim second, moving steadily from 8th at the first checkpoint to 6th by the finish and adding the 8th-fastest men's closing split to his résumé. Third-place Ali Toomes (McKinney, TX) crossed in 2:45:13 — but the real late charge in the top five belonged to Dakota Kruczynski (Cerritos, CA). Starting conservatively, Kruczynski was 47th among men through 5.5 miles, 34th at the half, and had rocketed to 12th by the tape with a 2:44:01 — including the 10th-fastest men's split on the 13.1M-to-20M segment. That kind of negative-split surge, in heat and humidity, is hard to overlook.

Further back, the race for the final sub-3:00 spots produced some of the day's tensest moments. Morgan Burnett (2:59:51), Anthony Duran (2:59:52), and Sam Archaga (3:00:06) all arrived within 15 seconds of each other at places 16–18, with Duran edging under the barrier by a single second. In a field of 754 M30-34 finishers, 17 of the top 20 broke three hours — a testament to the depth at the front of this group on a day when the conditions demanded respect.