Marine Corps Marathon F40-44: Liz Camy Leads a Sharp-Elbowed Field Home

• Liz Camy won F40-44 in 2:52:24 (6:35/mi), posting the 7th-fastest women's first-half split in the entire women's field and holding off second place by more than two minutes.
• Erin Bellissimo ran the 11th-fastest women's split on the 15K→21K stretch, climbing from 44th among women to 10th — one of the day's great surges — and finished 2nd in F40-44 in 2:54:51.
• The podium gap was real: Kristin Lemos (3rd, 3:00:08) and Eleni Rundle (4th, 3:00:42) were separated by just 34 seconds, but both trailed Camy by more than seven minutes.
• A field of 1,527 finishers made this one of the deepest age brackets on the course — fitting for a race the Marine Corps has long called "The People's Marathon."

Liz Camy came to Arlington ready to race, not just run. The Simi Valley athlete went out at 6:35/mi and backed it up, posting the 7th-fastest women's first-half split in the field and steadily climbing the women's standings — from 14th at the first checkpoint all the way to 7th by the finish. That kind of sustained pressure over 26.2 miles through 42-degree air and heavy humidity is how you win a field of 1,527. Her margin over Erin Bellissimo at the line was 2:27 — comfortable, earned, and never seriously threatened in the second half.

Bellissimo's race told a different story. The Monument, CO runner was 44th among women at 5K, but she was hunting. Her 11th-fastest women's split on the 15K-to-21K stretch was the engine of a remarkable climb, and by the finish she had risen to 10th among women and 2nd in F40-44 in 2:54:51. That's not a race run on autopilot — that's a calculated negative split executed under pressure.

Behind them, Kristin Lemos (3rd, 3:00:08) and Eleni Rundle (4th, 3:00:42) staged a quiet battle of their own. Lemos ran steadily and closed well, posting the 22nd-fastest women's split on the 30K–35K stretch to secure the final podium spot. Rundle, by contrast, had been as high as 5th among women through 10K — her 6th-fastest women's split on that early segment was electrifying — but faded across the back half, eventually settling 34 seconds behind Lemos. Jilane Petrie (5th, 3:02:23) and Sika Henry (6th, 3:02:27) rounded out a top six separated by less than 10 minutes at the front of a field that stretched deep into the afternoon along the monuments of Washington.