Women's Rio Del Lago 100: Davis Runs Down the Win After Dark

• Alysha Davis wins in 20:04:43, averaging 12:03/mi across 100 miles to take the women's title by 20 minutes and 10 seconds over Rachael Jorgensen.
• Davis and Jorgensen posted the two fastest women's splits on the Beals Point→Willow Creek segment, with Davis leading the way — the stretch where she opened the gap that decided the race.
• Kaitlin Nath's late charge: she climbed from 13th among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 3rd, posting the fastest women's split on the No Hands→ALT segment to lock up the podium.
• Alejandra Santos, 57, finished 12th in 24:31:21 — one of the most quietly impressive results in a women's field of 58.

Alysha Davis of Patagonia, AZ, did not lead wire to wire — she arrived at the first checkpoint in 3rd among women — but by the second checkpoint she had moved to the front and, with one brief exception, never relinquished it. That exception makes the story richer: Davis slipped to 2nd at the fifth checkpoint before reasserting herself, and she did it the decisive way, running the fastest women's split on the Beals Point→Willow Creek stretch to pull clear for good. Her 20:04:43 finish at 12:03/mi is the kind of number that earns a hundred-mile belt buckle and then some.

Rachael Jorgensen of Seattle made a compelling charge of her own, moving from 10th at the opening checkpoint to 2nd by the second, and she had the second-fastest women's split on that same Beals Point→Willow Creek segment — meaning she was running Davis down on that leg, not fading. The gap at the line was 20:10, but Jorgensen's 20:24:53 is a legitimate performance in its own right. Her Seattle teammate Kaitlin Nath rounded out the podium in 20:36:55, her late-race surge — fastest women's split on No Hands→ALT — doing exactly enough to hold off Jodi Reinschmidt, who finished 4th in 21:25:44 after running the third-fastest women's split on the Willow Creek→Beals Point 2 leg.

Mari Sullivan (5th, 22:04:22) and Lindsay Kasow (6th, 22:00:29) finished within four minutes of each other just past the 22-hour mark — though notably Kasow crossed in 22:00:29 to Sullivan's 22:04:22, meaning Kasow edged her despite finishing one place lower in the ordering. Sarah Evans of Corte Madera, at 46 the oldest finisher in the top ten, came home 8th in 22:07:42 — a result worth noting in a field where the top three were all under 40. Fifty-eight women finished Rio Del Lago's 100-mile course on a cool, clear November morning in Granite Bay, and every one of them earned it.