Women's Race: Tessa Barrett Runs Wire-to-Wire in 2:39:35

• Barrett leads from gun to tape: She held 1st among women through every checkpoint, clocking a 6:05/mi average to win by 6 minutes and 29 seconds over 2nd-place Jessica Smith (2:46:04).
• Smith's back-half surge: Starting 7th among women, Smith climbed steadily and posted the 2nd-fastest women's split on the second half to lock up the runner-up spot at 6:20/mi.
• Defending champion returns: 2023 women's winner Bonnie Keating (2:53:57) was back on the course — this time finishing 7th, more than three minutes behind her 2023 winning time of 2:50:49.
• Tight podium chase: 3rd-place Laurel Le Moigne (2:49:28, 6:28/mi) and 4th-place Mary Reiser (2:49:37, 6:28/mi) finished just nine seconds apart after very different journeys to get there.

On a crisp 43°F morning past the monuments of Arlington and Washington D.C., Tessa Barrett of Arlington, VA made the women's race her own from the opening miles. She sat 1st at every single checkpoint — a wire-to-wire command that left no doubt. Her 6:05/mi average was a full 15 seconds per mile faster than runner-up Smith, and her fastest stretch came between 15K and 21K, where she posted the quickest women's split of the race on that segment.

Behind her, the battle for the podium was anything but settled. Jessica Smith (Philadelphia, PA) was as far back as 7th early on, but she ran the second half smarter and faster than almost anyone in the field, posting the 2nd-fastest women's split on the back half to climb all the way to 2nd at 2:46:04. Laurel Le Moigne (Springfield, VA) made her own move, cracking the top three with the 4th-fastest women's split from 21K to 25K and finishing 3rd in 2:49:28. Mary Reiser (Baltimore, MD) closed even harder — also logging the 4th-fastest women's split on the second half — but her earlier positioning cost her, as she arrived 4th in 2:49:37, just nine seconds behind Le Moigne.

Stephanie Cichosz (Kirkland, WA) rounded out the top five in 2:51:19, while Savannah Peppenhorst (2:53:30) and defending champion Bonnie Keating (2:53:57) filled 6th and 7th. Keating's return to The People's Marathon — the largest prize-money-free marathon in the world — showed she remains a force, even if the crown passed to Barrett this year. Megan Walsh (2:53:58) finished just one second behind Keating in 8th, with Gabby Skopec (2:54:13) and Jonel Rodina (2:54:23) rounding out the top ten across 5,973 women finishers.