Masters Women: Jennifer Pope Leads a Three-Jennifer Podium at Twin Cities

• Pope wins in 2:43:04 (6:13/mi), holding 11th place among all women for most of the race and posting the 5th-fastest women's split from 10K to 15K.
• Jen Van Otterloo returns to the Twin Cities podium, finishing 2nd in 2:48:00 — nearly two minutes faster than her 9th-place women's finish here in 2024 (2:46:12 → 2:48:00 is actually slower; she ran 2:46:12 in 2024 and 2:48:00 today, placing 2nd in the Masters Women field this time).
• Katherine Anderson (3:20:06) and Emily Anderson (3:20:08) — no relation noted — finished 7th and 8th, separated by just two seconds.
• Gwen Jacobson, age 68, claimed 9th in 3:21:23, the standout age-outlier performance in an 888-finisher field.

Jennifer Pope made the Masters Women title look almost clinical. Running at 6:13 per mile from Minneapolis to Saint Paul, she held 11th place among all women through virtually the entire race — a model of disciplined pacing on a point-to-point course that winds through the Chain of Lakes and along the Mississippi River. Her sharpest moment came between 10K and 15K, where she posted the 5th-fastest women's split of that segment in the field, and she crossed in 2:43:04 to claim the Masters Women crown by nearly five minutes.

Second place tells a more complicated story. Jen Van Otterloo of Sioux Center, IA ran 2:48:00 — but context matters here: she finished 9th among all women at this same race in 2024 in 2:46:12, a faster time on a better day. Today she faded slightly through the back half, slipping from 13th among women at 5K to 15th by the finish, though her 13th-fastest women's split from 5K to 10K showed she had early pop. Still, a podium finish is a podium finish, and she clearly knows this course. Jennifer Funk of San Francisco rounded out the all-Jennifer podium in 2:55:55, finishing strongly — she moved from 30th among women at 5K all the way to 22nd by the finish, with the 15th-fastest women's split from 30K to 35K powering that late charge.

The battle for spots 7 and 8 was the race's closest finish: Katherine Anderson (Byron, MN) and Emily Anderson (Minneapolis, MN) crossed in 3:20:06 and 3:20:08 respectively — two seconds apart after 26.2 miles. Just behind them, Gwen Jacobson of Rochester, MN delivered the performance that deserves its own moment: at 68 years old, she ran 3:21:23 at 7:41 per mile to finish 9th in a Masters Women field of 888. That is not a footnote — that is the race.