M25-29: Zander-Velloso seizes control at the halfway mark and never looks back

• Vladimir Zander-Velloso won the M25-29 group in 2:28:25 (5:40/mi), posting the fastest split in the men's field from 10K to the half.
• Andrew Taylor pushed him hardest, finishing 2nd in 2:29:33 — just 68 seconds back after also running the 3rd-fastest men's split across that same stretch.
• Ryan Fan claimed 3rd in 2:41:05, a full 9:32 behind Taylor — the gap between the podium and the rest of the field was decisive.
• Jacob Warner (4th, 2:47:03) and Alex Morgan (5th, 2:47:37) were separated by just 34 seconds after 26.2 miles in 29°F wind.

Twenty-nine degrees and a 16 mph wind in Huntsville made this a race for the tough from the gun, and Zander-Velloso (Newnan, GA) was exactly that. He entered the top spot among the men by the 10K mark and never surrendered it, running 5:40 per mile from start to finish. That kind of controlled aggression — moving from 3rd to 1st in the men's field by 10K and staying there — is the mark of someone who knew exactly what pace he could sustain on a cold, blustery morning.

Taylor (Lafayette, IN) was right there in the early miles, sitting 2nd among the men through the half. His 10K-to-half split was the 3rd-fastest in the men's field, and he clearly had the fitness to challenge. But Zander-Velloso's lead held, and the 68-second margin at the finish reflected a race that was close but never truly in doubt in the final miles. Both men ran sub-2:30 on a day that punished anyone who went out too hard.

Behind the top two, Ryan Fan ran a composed race to secure the podium in 2:41:05, though he slipped from 5th to 10th among the men between 10K and the half before rallying back to 10th at the finish — a sign of some mid-race turbulence. Warner and Morgan waged the afternoon's tightest battle, separated by just 34 seconds across 26.2 miles, with Warner (Birmingham, AL) edging Morgan (Maryville, TN) for 4th. The next cluster — Arnholt, Davies, and Armbruster — all finished within two minutes of each other between 2:48 and 2:50, making for a genuinely competitive M25-29 field of 131 finishers on one of the colder race days Huntsville has seen.