Women's Marathon: Paige Moore Edges Out a Thrilling Finish in Long Beach

• Moore wins in 2:55:13 (6:41/mi), holding off Salena Gallardo Dominguez — who closed with the 3rd-fastest women's split from mile 20 to the finish — by 1:10.
• Gallardo Dominguez (2:56:23) and Hope Stark (2:58:10) round out the podium, with Sophia Carcamo just one second behind Stark in 4th at 2:58:11.
• Carcamo, just 19, ran the 3rd-fastest women's split from 13.1M to 20M; Stark ran the 4th-fastest on that same stretch — two teenagers and twenty-somethings trading blows through the back half.
• 1,346 women finished on a warm, humid Long Beach morning — 72°F with 73% humidity making every late-mile surge harder to sustain.

Paige Moore's win was anything but a wire-to-wire cruise. Her place among the women swung from 2nd to 1st, back to 2nd, and then back to 1st across the four checkpoints — a lead that was never fully secure. She posted the 2nd-fastest women's split from 5.5M to 13.1M to build early momentum, then held her 6:41/mi average through the heat and humidity to cross in 2:55:13. The 24-year-old from Rancho Palos Verdes earned every second of that victory.

Gallardo Dominguez was a patient hunter. Running as far back as 5th among the women at the 20-mile mark, the Redondo Beach native unleashed the 3rd-fastest women's closing split from mile 20 to the finish to rocket into 2nd at 2:56:23. It was a textbook negative-split surge — but Moore had just enough runway to survive it.

The battle for 3rd was razor-close and fiercely contested. Hope Stark (Colorado Springs, CO) and Sophia Carcamo (Clayton, CA) both came through the second half running the 4th- and 3rd-fastest women's splits respectively from 13.1M to 20M, both moving steadily up the leaderboard. Stark crossed in 2:58:10; Carcamo, at just 19 years old, was one second back at 2:58:11. Megan Hansen, who had run the 3rd-fastest women's split from 5.5M to 13.1M and sat as high as 2nd at that checkpoint, faded to 5th in 3:03:56 — a reminder of how brutally the Long Beach back half can punish a fast early effort.