M40-44: Anderson Holds Off Bordoni in a Wet Napa Showdown

• Daniel Anderson (Redwood City, CA) wins M40-44 in 2:51:23 (6:32/mi), finishing 15th among men overall.
• Michael Bordoni trails by just 1:09 at 2:52:32, with third place Fei Shi a further 6:56 back.
• Fei Shi and Don Wang were the field's late chargers — Shi posted the 29th-fastest men's split on the 20M-to-finish stretch, Wang the 34th, both climbing from outside the top 60 among men to finish 3rd and 4th in M40-44.
• 107 men completed the M40-44 race in cold, rainy conditions — 41°F with light rain off the Napa Valley floor.

Daniel Anderson ran a controlled, confident race from the front. He moved through the men's field steadily — sitting 17th among men at the first checkpoint, nudging up to 15th by the halfway mark — before settling into 17th at the finish with a 6:32/mi average that no one in M40-44 could match. His 15th-fastest men's split on the 6.2M-to-13.1M stretch was a sign he was racing the whole course, not just surviving it.

Michael Bordoni (Los Altos, CA) was Anderson's shadow for most of the morning. Running 19th among men through virtually every checkpoint, Bordoni was remarkably consistent — perhaps too consistent to reel in Anderson, who had already built his cushion. Bordoni's 2:52:32 (6:35/mi) was a strong runner-up effort, but the 1:09 gap to the winner was decisive. Third place required a different kind of race entirely.

Fei Shi (San Diego, CA) and Don Wang (San Jose, CA) turned in the most dramatic arcs of the day. Both were buried — 74th and 75th among men respectively at the 6.2-mile mark — and both ran themselves into the M40-44 podium with powerful closing legs. Shi's 6:51/mi average got him to 2:59:28 and third place; Wang matched that exact average pace but finished 17 seconds behind at 2:59:45, good for fourth. The gap between them was narrow; the gap they closed on the field was enormous.

Mitch Anstey (Davidson, NC) rounded out the top five in 3:00:53, the only other finisher under 3:05. Behind him, Alton Dunnigan (3:05:51), Aaron Mass (3:07:57), and Mike Sego (3:08:53) filled out a competitive top eight, all finishing within 17 minutes of the winner across a cold, damp Napa morning.