Masters Men 5K: Capone Delivers a Double for the Ages

• Dante Capone, 60, wins in 15:44 (5:04/mi) — nearly three minutes clear of 2nd place, on a morning when he had already won the full Marathon.
• Scot McLean (18:41, 6:01/mi) holds 2nd comfortably, with Dwayne Spencer (19:28, 6:16/mi) rounding out the podium in 3rd.
• Tight battle for 5th–6th: Jesse Poiani (20:51) and Arturo Lopez (20:56) separated by just five seconds across 3.1 miles.
• 170 Masters Men finished, with the top 20 spanning from 15:44 down to 25:23.

The headline story in the Masters Men 5K isn't just a win — it's a double. Dante Capone, a 60-year-old from Sebastopol, crossed first in 15:44, running 5:04 per mile through the cool, misty Santa Rosa morning. That would be remarkable on its own. But Capone had already won the Men's Marathon earlier in the same event — a feat that deserves its own moment of recognition. Winning a full marathon and then toeing the line to take the Masters Men 5K outright is an extraordinary day of racing by any measure.

Behind Capone, Scot McLean of San Anselmo ran a composed 18:41 (6:01/mi) to claim 2nd, finishing nearly a minute ahead of Dwayne Spencer, who posted 19:28 (6:16/mi) for 3rd. The gap from 1st to 2nd — just under three minutes — tells you everything about how dominant Capone's effort was at the front.

The race for 4th through 6th was considerably tighter. Ryan Silva (20:26, 6:35/mi) held off Jesse Poiani (20:51, 6:43/mi) and Arturo Lopez (20:56, 6:44/mi), with Poiani and Lopez separated by just five seconds despite running at notably different paces — Lopez closed the gap but couldn't quite get there. Alejandro Gonzalez, 62, added a notable age-outlier performance with a 21:34 (6:56/mi) for 7th, while local runner Andy Lieberman of Santa Rosa finished 8th in 21:48.

The misty 60°F conditions were about as good as Northern California gets for fast running in August, and the depth of 170 finishers made this one of the stronger Masters fields on the card. But on this day, the story begins and ends with Capone.