San Francisco Half Marathon: Thimot Leads the M60-64 Field in Style

• Tom Thimot, 1:44:31 (7:58/mi): Won the M60-64 race by 2:37 over Steve Dalke, climbing steadily through the men's field from 546th at the first checkpoint all the way to 237th by the finish.
• Closest battle of the day: Israel Hernandez (4th, 1:54:18) and Jose Gomez (5th, 1:54:19) — separated by a single second across 13.1 miles.
• Dave Payne's mid-race surge: The 3rd-place finisher (1:48:28) posted the 103rd-fastest men's split on the 8M–9.6M segment, a stretch that helped him lock down the podium.
• 87 finishers completed the M60-64 race, with the top 20 ranging from Thimot's 1:44:31 down to Siegmund Frankenfeld's 2:09:41.

Tom Thimot, 60, of Los Gatos made the M60-64 race his own with a commanding 7:58/mi effort that placed him well clear of the field. His journey through the men's standings tells the real story: starting back in 546th among all men, he spent the entire race picking off competitors — reaching 401st by the halfway point and eventually finishing 237th in the men's field. For good measure, he posted the 120th-fastest men's split on the final 12M-to-finish stretch, meaning he was still accelerating when others were fading into the San Francisco wind.

Steve Dalke, 64, of Bakersfield held the runner-up spot in 1:47:08 (8:10/mi), while Dave Payne, 64, of Los Altos Hills rounded out the podium in 1:48:28 (8:16/mi). Payne was particularly sharp through miles 8 to 9.6, running the 103rd-fastest men's split on that segment — a meaningful push that separated him from the pack. Dalke, by contrast, was steady through most of the race before a slightly softer 9.6M–10.5M split (309th among men) in the closing miles, though his lead over Payne was never seriously threatened.

The race's most dramatic footnote came at 4th and 5th: Israel Hernandez of San Marcos and Jose Gomez of México D.F. ran 13.1 miles in 59°F and 14 mph winds and arrived at the finish in 1:54:18 and 1:54:19 respectively — one second apart after nearly two hours of racing. Hernandez had the stronger closing miles, having worked his way up from 1,019th among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 592nd by the finish. Gomez took a different path, running more evenly through the first half before a quieter 4M–6M split (559th among men) cost him that extra second. A single tick of the clock decided 4th place.