M60-64: Hiraoka Runs Away from the Field in San Francisco

• Taki Hiraoka won the M60-64 race in 1:32:03 (7:01/mi), finishing more than 8 minutes and 40 seconds clear of 2nd place.
• Glenn Kurtz ran the strongest middle segment of any M60-64 finisher, climbing from deep in the men's field to claim 2nd in 1:40:45 (7:41/mi).
• Tim Nufire and Les Wong battled through the final stretch — Nufire posted the 283rd-fastest split in the field on the 11.9M–Finish leg to hold off Wong, finishing 3rd in 1:45:28 vs. Wong's 4th in 1:47:35.
• The top 20 spanned nearly 38 minutes of finish time, reflecting a deep and competitive 52-man field across San Francisco's demanding course.

Taki Hiraoka, 60, from Los Altos, delivered the defining performance of the M60-64 race. His 7:01/mi average was the kind of pace that simply doesn't leave room for a contest — and indeed there wasn't one. He crossed in 1:32:03 and spent the entire race near the front of the men's field, never slipping. No one in this group came close to answering him.

Behind Hiraoka, Glenn Kurtz of San Francisco made for the most compelling subplot. He started conservatively — sitting well back in the men's field through the first 4.9 miles — but then ran the 4.9M–11.9M segment as the 259th-fastest split in the field at that stage, surging through the middle miles to lock up 2nd place in 1:40:45. That's a 7:41/mi effort from a 62-year-old on San Francisco's hills, and it earned him a comfortable cushion over the rest of the M60-64 field.

Third and fourth came down to who held up late. Tim Nufire (61, San Francisco) and Les Wong (64, Steamboat Springs) both ran strong races, but it was Nufire who posted the sharper closing split — the 283rd-fastest 11.9M-to-finish leg in the field — to finish 3rd in 1:45:28. Wong, running at 8:12/mi, came home 4th in 1:47:35, with Liang Zhao (5th, 1:49:43) and Yue Chen (6th, 1:50:05) rounding out a tightly grouped chase pack just behind them.