Masters Women's Run the Parkway: Resney Runs Away With It

• Romney Resney, 57, wins in 2:33:28 — a 7:40/mi average that put her more than eight minutes clear of runner-up Jennifer Berlier.
• Podium spread: Berlier (2:41:52) and Joy Toyias (2:44:44) locked up 2nd and 3rd; the gap from 1st to 3rd was just over 11 minutes across 20 miles.
• Late surge at the top: Resney, Berlier, and 4th-place Cherie Smith all posted their strongest relative splits on the Mile 16→Finish stretch — Resney's was the 9th-fastest among all women on that closing segment.
• Tight mid-pack battle: Smith (2:52:10) and Jennifer Rasmussen (2:52:20) were separated by just 10 seconds at the line after running nearly identical races from the gun.

Romney Resney was never seriously threatened. She held 11th among all women through the first three checkpoints, then climbed to 9th by the finish — steady, controlled, and clearly the class of the Masters Women field on a warm November morning in Folsom. At 57, she was the oldest athlete on the podium by a decade, and she won by the kind of margin — more than eight minutes — that doesn't invite debate.

Behind her, Jennifer Berlier of Orangevale was consistent throughout, holding 16th or 17th among all women across every checkpoint before closing to 16th at the finish. Joy Toyias of Fair Oaks rounded out the podium in 2:44:44, though her race told a slightly different story: she held 15th among all women through Mile 10 before fading to 18th by the end, suggesting the back half of the course — or the 74°F warmth — took its toll.

The most gripping subplot played out just off the podium. Cherie Smith and Jennifer Rasmussen, both from Sacramento, ran in near-perfect lockstep all afternoon. Both sat 27th–29th among all women through the middle miles, both found another gear after Mile 16, and both finished within 10 seconds of each other — Smith in 2:52:10, Rasmussen in 2:52:20. That's four seconds per mile of racing for 20 miles to settle a 10-second verdict.

All 133 Masters Women finishers made it to the line, with the top 20 ranging from Resney's 7:40 pace down to Jenny Cook's 9:21 — a field that covered a lot of ground, in every sense.