Men's Half Marathon: Luis Orta Seizes the Lead and Never Lets Go

• Luis Orta wins in 1:08:34 (5:14/mi), the fastest men's finish of the day — posting the fastest men's split on the 5M→10.9M segment to break clear.
• Oliver Chang (1:09:11) closes hard with the fastest men's split on the second half, finishing 37 seconds back in 2nd.
• Jacob Lehmann Duke (1:11:53) and Dominic Henriques (1:11:58) battle to the wire — just 5 seconds separating 3rd from 4th across 13.1 miles.
• Eddie Carrillo improves on his 5th-place finish here in 2022 (1:13:10), running 33 seconds faster to claim 5th again — this time at 1:12:37.

Luis Orta came to San Francisco and ran like he owned the city's hills. The 34-year-old from Broomfield, CO moved from 2nd at the first checkpoint to the lead by 5M and never relinquished it, finishing in 1:08:34 at a 5:14/mi clip. His decisive move came on the 5M→10.9M segment, where he posted the fastest men's split of that stretch — the moment the race effectively ended for everyone behind him.

Oliver Chang had a different kind of race. The 23-year-old from South Pasadena slipped to 4th at one point before rallying with the fastest men's split on the second half to reclaim 2nd at the finish in 1:09:11. That 5:17/mi average tells the story of a runner who saved something for the back end — but Orta's early surge had already built a cushion Chang couldn't fully close.

The fight for the podium was the race's most gripping subplot. Jacob Lehmann Duke, just 21 and racing out of nearby Berkeley, held 3rd from the 10.9M mark to the finish in 1:11:53. Dominic Henriques (1:11:58) threw down the 3rd-fastest men's split on the second half in pursuit, but five seconds was all that separated them after 13.1 miles of San Francisco's punishing terrain. Behind them, Eddie Carrillo quietly delivered one of the field's best individual stories — the hometown San Francisco runner not only matched his 2022 result but beat his own time by 33 seconds, finishing 5th in 1:12:37 in a men's field of 1,757.