San Francisco Half Marathon F40-44: Lili Peng Runs Away With It

• Lili Peng, 42, wins in 1:35:45 (7:18/mi) — more than six and a half minutes clear of the field in a 133-runner F40-44 race.
• Masha Rakhlin storms through the back half — entering the 4.9M–11.9M segment ranked 167th among women, she climbed to 71st by the finish, claiming 2nd in F40-44 at 1:42:23.
• Podium spread: just 1:31 separates 2nd-place Rakhlin (1:42:23) from 3rd-place Baorui Jia (1:43:54) and 4th-place Kathryne Faherty (1:44:56) — three athletes within 93 seconds of each other.
• Top 20 spans 21 minutes: from Peng's 1:35:45 to Andrea Gremer's 1:56:39 at 20th place, the F40-44 field showed genuine depth across the board.

Lili Peng, 42, from Dublin, CA, was never seriously threatened. She held 34th among all women from the opening miles and never drifted, finishing 33rd among women overall with a 7:18/mi average that put a commanding 6:38 gap between her and anyone else in F40-44. Her 1.2M–4.9M split ranked 36th-fastest among all women in the race — an early signal that the win was already being built.

The real drama unfolded behind her. Masha Rakhlin, 41, of San Francisco, was buried in 167th among women through the first miles, but she ran the 4.9M–11.9M stretch as the 71st-fastest woman on that segment and kept climbing all the way to the finish at 1:42:23. That kind of sustained surge through the middle of a hilly San Francisco course is not a small thing. Baorui Jia, 44, of Beaverton, OR, answered with the 80th-fastest women's split on the 11.9M-to-finish leg to lock up 3rd at 1:43:54 — edging out Kathryne Faherty, 44, who ran a 7:56/mi-to-8:00/mi battle with Jia over the final miles and crossed 4th in 1:44:56.

Meagan Camp, 41, of Brooklyn, also made a late move, posting the 93rd-fastest women's split on the closing segment to finish 5th in 1:45:29, with Linda Mai (1:46:17), Lara Pheatt (1:46:31), Loan Nacu (1:47:06), and Laura Baker (1:47:18) rounding out a tightly packed 6th-through-9th. Jen Whalen (1:48:58) and Benjamin Rosenberg (1:49:36) completed the top 11 in what was a competitive and deep F40-44 field across all 133 finishers.