Women's Half Marathon: Gleason dominates in Huntsville's December heat

• Lizzie Gleason wins in 1:21:46 (6:14/mi), posting the fastest women's split on the 10K→Finish stretch to seal a wire-to-wire victory.
• Anna Tellefsen finishes 2nd in 1:27:57 — a 6:43/mi effort, more than six minutes back but second-fastest on the closing segment.
• Ruthie Sloan moves from 6th to 5th on the back half with the 4th-fastest women's closing split — and she'd already claimed 3rd in the women's 10K earlier in the weekend, making her one of the standout double-race stories of the day.
• Kathryn Dahir, 56, crosses in 1:42:58 (7:51/mi) to finish 9th among 175 women — a quietly impressive result in tough conditions.

Seventy degrees, 17 mph winds, and 76% humidity in December — Huntsville turned up the heat, but Lizzie Gleason was unfazed. The Dayton, Ohio native ran a 6:14/mi pace from start to finish and never relinquished her lead, holding 1st among the women from the opening checkpoint straight through the tape. Her 1:21:46 wasn't just a win — she also owned the fastest women's split on the 10K→Finish segment, meaning she got stronger as the race wore on.

Behind her, 22-year-old Anna Tellefsen of Spartanburg, SC held 2nd from start to finish as well, clocking 1:27:57 at 6:43/mi. The gap to Gleason — just over six minutes — tells the story of a dominant performance up front. Meredith Heiser of Nashville rounded out the podium in 1:31:39 (6:59/mi), also running the 3rd-fastest closing split among the women, a composed and consistent effort on a day that punished anyone who went out too hard.

The most compelling subplot belonged to Ruthie Sloan. After finishing 3rd in the women's 10K earlier in the weekend, Sloan came back for the half marathon and ran the 4th-fastest women's 10K→Finish split to climb from 6th to 5th, finishing in 1:37:59. That kind of back-to-back racing across two events in one weekend is no small feat. Just behind her, Ami Weems of Birmingham — at 49 years old — held 4th in 1:36:50 (7:23/mi), a result that speaks for itself in a 175-woman field.