San Francisco Half Marathon M25-29: Rager Runs Down the Field to Take the Crown

• Jack Rager, 1:09:08 (5:16/mi) — won M25-29 after climbing from 4th to 1st in the men's field across the final stretch, posting the fastest men's split on the 4.9M–11.9M segment.
• Abdulmuhsen Alali, 1:09:47 — led the men's field from the opening miles but was overtaken late; his 39-second gap to Rager at the finish tells the story of who had the stronger second half.
• Aaron Breene, 1:10:10 — held 3rd in M25-29 with the 2nd-fastest men's split on the 1.2M–4.9M segment, finishing just 23 seconds behind Alali.
• 458 finishers completed M25-29, with the top 14 all breaking 1:17.

Abdulmuhsen Alali (Boulder, CO) set the early tempo and owned the men's lead from the gun through the 11.9-mile mark, posting the fastest men's split on the 1.2M–4.9M segment at a 5:19/mi clip. Aaron Breene (San Francisco) shadowed him through that same stretch with the 2nd-fastest split on that leg, keeping the pressure on while Jack Rager (San Francisco) was quietly working his way up — sitting 4th at the first check, then 3rd, then 2nd, before finally seizing the lead in the closing miles.

It was the 4.9M–11.9M segment where Rager made his decisive move, running the fastest men's split on that stretch to overturn the order entirely. By the finish line he had opened a 39-second cushion over Alali and crossed in 1:09:08 — a 5:16/mi average over 13.1 miles through San Francisco's demanding course. Alali held on for 2nd in 1:09:47, and Breene completed the podium in 1:10:10, making it three men under 1:10:30 at the front of a 458-strong field.

Behind the podium, Adam Wilkinson (Santa Monica) and Alex Miley (San Jose) put together strong second halves of their own — Wilkinson moved from 9th to 4th in the men's field, finishing in 1:11:16, while Miley climbed from 13th all the way to 5th by 11.9 miles and held it to the tape in 1:11:40. William Makinen (1:12:26), Langston Hazen (1:13:13), and Boskin Erkocevic (1:13:28) rounded out the top eight, all within 4:20 of the winner across a fiercely competitive group.