Rio Del Lago 50K F60-69: Moss edges Svahn by six seconds in a photo-finish duel

• M.c. Moss won the F60-69 age group in 8:10:02 (15:46/mi), holding off Jan Svahn by just six seconds across 50 kilometers.
• Jan Svahn ran the 27th-fastest women's split on the Beals Point 2→Granite Beach 1 segment, finishing in 8:10:08 — the slimmest of margins behind Moss.
• Karen Wilkes, at 69 the oldest in the group, closed in 8:16:37, logging the 26th-fastest women's split on Beals Point 2→Granite Beach 1 along the way.
• All three women held a 15-to-16-minute-per-mile pace across eight-plus hours of racing — a testament to sustained effort over a long, demanding day.

Three women, three different cities, and one of the tightest age-group finishes of the day. M.c. Moss of Grass Valley claimed the F60-69 title in 8:10:02, but she had to earn every second of it — Jan Svahn of Rancho Cucamonga was right on her heels at 8:10:08, a gap of six seconds after more than eight hours of racing. That works out to roughly one second per hour of separation. It doesn't get much closer than that.

The race unfolded with some intriguing positional chess among the women's field. Svahn actually moved as high as 24th among women at the first checkpoint before gradually settling back through the pack, finishing 30th among women. Moss, meanwhile, fluctuated between 28th and 31st, ultimately landing 29th. Both women were threading through a competitive women's field all day long. Moss's 26th-fastest women's split on the Granite Beach 1→Granite Beach 2 segment hints at where she may have found the edge to hold Svahn off in the final stretch.

Karen Wilkes, a local from Granite Bay racing on home terrain, ran a composed race of her own. She was as high as 30th among women at mid-race and finished 31st, completing the course in 8:16:37 — about six and a half minutes behind the top two. Her 26th-fastest women's split on the Beals Point 2→Granite Beach 1 leg matched Wilkes's best segment of the day. At 69, she's the eldest of the group and the last finisher, but the gap is a matter of minutes, not a story of struggle — just three competitors who went the distance on a warm November day in the Sierra Nevada foothills.