M70-74: Chalamalasetti Dominates San Francisco's Hills at 72

• Winner: Nagabhushana Rao Chalamalasetti (age 72, Hyderabad, CA) — 4:23:33 at 10:03/mi, nearly 30 minutes clear of the field.
• Closest battle: Bob Ulloa (4:53:12) edged Jon Dudley (4:55:44) for 2nd by 2:32 — both men fading through the back half.
• Late surge: Chalamalasetti posted one of the stronger closing splits of his race, climbing from 2,547th to 1,852nd among men from the midpoint to the finish line.
• Full field: All 19 M70-74 finishers crossed in conditions of 69°F with moderate humidity — no small feat over 26.2 miles of San Francisco's relentless terrain.

Nagabhushana Rao Chalamalasetti, 72, made this race look like a different event than the one everyone else was running. His 4:23:33 at a 10:03/mi clip put him nearly half an hour ahead of the next M70-74 finisher — a gap that tells its own story. What makes it sharper still is that he was still moving through the field in the final stretch: his closing segment from 24 miles to the finish was strong enough to advance him from 2,547th to 1,852nd among men, a gain of nearly 700 places in the race's last miles while others were fading into the fog.

Behind him, the battle for 2nd was a genuine race within the race. Bob Ulloa (age 73, Porterville) and Jon Dudley (age 70, Richmond, VA) ran together through the early miles — both were in the top 1,700 men through the opening 5.7-mile segment — but the course took its toll on both. Ulloa slid from 1,623rd among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 2,573rd by the finish. Dudley tracked a nearly identical fade, dropping from 1,586th to 2,630th. It was Ulloa who held on for 2nd in 4:53:12, with Dudley 2:32 back in 3rd at 4:55:44.

Dan Durham (4th, 5:01:27) and Dale Payton-Engle (5th, 5:10:09) rounded out the top five, with Gerald Wong (6th, 5:10:48) just 39 seconds further back — the tightest gap anywhere in the field outside the podium. The back of the M70-74 field spread across nearly two hours of finish times, with Mohammed Miradi (19th, 6:48:38) closing out the group at 15:35/mi. Every one of these 19 men finished 26.2 miles through San Francisco — and that alone deserves its own acknowledgment.