F25-29: Seawell surges to the front and never looks back

• Jenica Seawell, 2:15:19 (6:46/mi) — won the F25-29 age group and climbed from 5th to 1st among women with the fastest women's split on the Mile 10–Mile 15.6 segment.
• Emily Auernig finished 2nd in 2:29:51 — a 14-minute gap back, but she held 7th among women wire-to-wire with the 7th-fastest women's split on the Mile 4–Mile 10 stretch.
• Camilla Hanson was the strongest closer in the group, posting the 13th-fastest women's split on the Mile 16–Finish segment to climb from 38th to 22nd among women and claim 4th in F25-29.
• 29 women finished in the F25-29 age group, with times ranging from 2:15:19 to beyond 3:43:50.

Jenica Seawell ran a tactically brilliant race on a warm November day in Folsom — 74°F with humidity nudging 60% made every mile a negotiation. She sat 5th among women through the early miles, patient and controlled, then detonated on the Mile 10–Mile 15.6 stretch with the fastest women's split of anyone in the field on that segment. By Mile 15.6 she had moved to 1st among women and stayed there, crossing in 2:15:19 at a 6:46/mi clip — a full 14 and a half minutes clear of her nearest F25-29 rival.

Emily Auernig (2:29:51) was a model of consistency, holding 7th among women from Mile 4 onward and backing it with the 7th-fastest women's split on that same early segment. Brandi Farrel (2:36:32, 7:50/mi) rounded out the podium in 3rd, though she slipped steadily through the women's field across the second half, finishing 12th among women overall.

The late-race story belonged to Camilla Hanson and Lauren Roberts, both of whom spent most of the race buried deep in the women's field before turning on the jets. Hanson went from 38th among women at Mile 4 all the way to 22nd by the finish — the 13th-fastest women's split on the closing Mile 16–Finish segment powering that charge. Roberts (2:49:08) made a similar move, posting the 19th-fastest women's split on that same closing stretch to land 5th in F25-29. In a race where the heat had plenty of runners fading, those two were moving the other direction.