M35-39: Adrian Haywas Runs Down the Field in San Francisco

• Adrian Haywas, 38, wins M35-39 in 2:35:29 (5:56/mi), climbing from 11th to 8th among men by the halfway mark and holding that ground to the finish.
• Lupe Palalia's closing kick was the day's real drama: after sliding as far back as 24th among men, he posted the 4th-fastest men's split from 24M to the finish line and surged home in 2:40:45 — 5:20 behind Haywas but well clear of 3rd.
• Paul Zlatunich ran the opposite race: he sat 4th among men through the first two miles, then faded steadily across every checkpoint, finishing 5th in M35-39 at 2:55:04 — a cautionary tale about going out fast on the San Francisco hills.
• The top 20 spanned 35 minutes, from Haywas's 2:35:29 to Robert Stinson's 3:10:45, across a field of 717 finishers.

Cool and breezy at 59°F with a 15 mph wind off the Bay, conditions were as good as San Francisco offers for a July marathon — and Adrian Haywas made the most of them. The 38-year-old from San Diego ran a measured, progressive race, climbing from 11th to 8th among men by the 20-mile mark and then posting the 6th-fastest men's split on the 20M–22M stretch. He never quite cracked the top eight among men overall, but within M35-39 it was never truly close: his 2:35:29 at 5:56/mi left runner-up Lupe Palalia more than five minutes back.

Palalia's race was the most compelling subplot in the field. The 39-year-old from San Jose looked cooked by mile 24, having drifted to 24th among men, but he found another gear entirely in the closing miles — running the 4th-fastest men's split from 24M to the finish and crossing in 2:40:45. That's a legitimate catch-up story: he didn't nearly win, but he absolutely earned his silver medal.

Third went to Tokyo's Naoto Kuga, 35, in 2:47:59. Kuga showed his own mid-race surge — he owned the 12th-fastest men's split between miles 9.86 and 10.5 and climbed from 36th to 22nd among men through the middle of the race before settling back to 29th by the finish. Mike Slopsema (2:51:37) and the fading Zlatunich (2:55:04) rounded out the top five, while Michael Graham (2:56:24) and Alexander Skieller (2:56:56) made it a tight cluster from 7th through 8th. Further back, Wyatt Brothers, Ty Nguyen, and Jerry Lu all finished within 40 seconds of each other between 3:04:11 and 3:04:51 — a quiet battle that didn't make the podium but was hard-fought all the same.