SF Half Marathon F25-29: Maklin Runs Down the Podium in 1:25:00

• Neza Maklin won the F25-29 field in 1:25:00 (6:29/mi), posting the 2nd-fastest women's split on the second half to seal a commanding victory.
• Delaney Miller and Katie Chu both clocked 1:26:53 — separated only by the timing chip, with Miller edging Chu for 2nd place by the narrowest of margins; both ran the 4th- and 5th-fastest women's splits on the 2.95M–5M segment, respectively.
• Clare Flanagan climbed from 13th to 7th among women across the race, logging the 4th-fastest women's split from 10.9M to the finish to land 5th in F25-29 at 1:28:19.
• A field of 344 finishers in F25-29 made this one of the deepest cohorts on the course, with the top five all under 1:29.

Neza Maklin, representing Ljubljana, owned the F25-29 race from a position of strength. Running 6:29/mi, she held 3rd among women through the first three checkpoints before moving up to 2nd in the women's field by the finish — and within her own age group, no one came close. Her 1:25:00 finish was nearly two minutes clear of the next F25-29 runner, and that second-half split tells the story: she got faster when others faded.

The battle for 2nd and 3rd in F25-29 was as tight as it gets without a genuine tie. Miller and Chu both crossed in 1:26:53, but the timing system separated them — Miller in 2nd, Chu in 3rd. Both ran the early 2.95M–5M stretch among the sharpest women in the field (4th- and 5th-fastest splits on that segment, respectively), suggesting they were racing each other hard from the opening miles. Lindy Zeng of San Francisco was just six seconds further back at 1:26:59, also at 6:38/mi — a three-woman cluster within a six-second window for positions 2 through 4.

Clare Flanagan delivered the race's most visible surge. Starting 13th among women, she worked her way through the field segment by segment, reaching the final stretch from 10.9M to the finish with the 4th-fastest women's split on that closing leg. Her 1:28:19 finish at 6:44/mi — noticeably stronger than Zeng's pace through the middle miles — reflects a well-timed build rather than an early blowout. From 6th place onward, the gaps widened sharply: Soledad Calderon finished 6th in 1:33:42, more than five minutes behind Maklin, underscoring just how elite the top five performances were on a cool, humid San Francisco morning.