Women's 10K: Ava Larsen dominates Summit Ave in 37:56

• Ava Larsen, 22, wins in 37:56 (6:06/mi), holding the top spot among women from the first checkpoint to the finish line and posting the fastest women's split from 1M to 5K.
• Sharon Arnold climbs from 9th to 3rd: the Circle Pines 37-year-old crossed in 40:36 — a full 1:11 faster than her 41:47 finish here in 2025, and good enough to leapfrog six spots on the podium.
• Tanya Hass, 45, runs into 4th: her 3rd-fastest women's split on the 5K-to-finish stretch shows she was still accelerating when others were holding on, finishing in 40:43.
• Pj English-Klitzke moves up late: sitting 6th at the 5K checkpoint, she reeled in a place to finish 5th in 41:28 — the only position change in the top ten in the back half.

Ava Larsen made the women's race look straightforward — and that's a compliment. The 22-year-old from Cold Spring led wire to wire down Summit Avenue and into the shadow of the Minnesota State Capitol, running 6:06 per mile across 6.2 miles on a warm, humid October morning (70°F, 72% humidity — not nothing). Her winning margin over Georgi Brady was 1:49, and she backed it up with the fastest women's split from the mile to the 5K mark, a stretch that tends to sort the contenders from the field.

Brady, 25, from Rochester, was equally locked in — 2nd at every checkpoint, 2nd at the finish in 39:45 at 6:24/mi, and the second-fastest women's split through that same 1M-to-5K corridor. She ran her own clean race; Larsen was simply in another gear.

The podium's most compelling story belongs to Sharon Arnold. The 37-year-old from Circle Pines was 9th here in 2025 with a 41:47. This year she ran 40:36 — 1:11 faster — and claimed 3rd, also posting the 3rd-fastest women's split in that middle stretch. That kind of year-over-year improvement, on the same course, is exactly what this race weekend rewards.

Behind the top five, the competition stayed sharp well into the field. Jennifer Mehta, 46, and Sara Hess, 51, finished 7th and 10th respectively, each turning in sub-7:00 miles in conditions that had plenty of runners working harder than their paces suggested. Hess and Andrea Norris (41, Minneapolis) actually matched each other to the second — 42:45 apiece — with Hess edging 10th by the timing mat. In a women's field of 1,578, every second counted.