Men's Marathon: Dante Capone, 60, Wins Santa Rosa Outright

• Dante Capone, age 60, wins the men's race in 2:24:18 (5:30/mi) — the fastest second half among the men sealed it.
• Double-race weekend: Capone also took 1st in the men's 5K at this same event, making him the standout performer of the entire weekend.
• Biggest second-half surge: Ryan Fitzsimons climbed from 8th to 4th, and Matthew Hillyard from 11th to 5th, each running the fastest closing half in their vicinity to pass fading rivals.
• Tight cluster at 6th–8th: Ethan Wappes (2:39:40), Bruce Peck (2:39:49), and Alexandros Anemogiannis (2:39:52) — 12 seconds covering three men — battled to the wire in a genuine race-within-the-race.

The headline story of the 2024 Santa Rosa Marathon men's race is almost impossible to overstate: Dante Capone of San Diego, age 60, won the entire men's field of 794 finishers in 2:24:18, averaging 5:30 per mile through cool, humid Sonoma County air. That time sits just 25 seconds off Nicholas Tsotu's 2022 winning mark of 2:23:11 — remarkable context for a 60-year-old topping a field of that depth. And he didn't just survive to the finish; Capone posted the fastest second-half split among the men from the half-marathon mark to the finish, meaning he ran the back half faster than anyone else in the field.

John McGrath (2:28:40, 5:40/mi) held second from start to finish and finished 4:22 behind Capone — a comfortable runner-up but never truly in the hunt once Capone's pace was established. Ross D'Orfani, 23, of Los Gatos moved from 4th at the half to 3rd by the finish in 2:34:05 (5:53/mi), posting the second-fastest closing split among the men — a strong move that edged him onto the podium.

Behind the podium, the second half of the race reshuffled the order considerably. Ryan Fitzsimons (2:36:18) and Matthew Hillyard (2:37:42) were sitting 8th and 11th respectively at halfway, then each ran the 4th- and 5th-fastest closing halves in the men's field to climb to 4th and 5th — a pair of well-executed negative splits on a flat, fast Boston Qualifier course. Meanwhile, the 6th-through-8th battle between Wappes, Peck, and Anemogiannis unfolded over just 12 seconds, with Peck and Anemogiannis averaging 6:06/mi to Wappes's 6:05/mi — close enough that any one of them could have swapped spots with a slightly different final mile.

Capone's double — 5K win and marathon win in the same weekend — stands as the performance of the event. Racing 26.2 miles at 5:30/mi at age 60, then appearing at the top of the results sheet above nearly 800 competitors, is the kind of result that makes the numbers worth reading twice.