Women's Marathon: Dakota Vincent Dominates While Wojcik Storms Through the Back Half

• Dakota Vincent wins in 2:52:01 (6:34/mi), the fastest women's finish since the 2022 edition and nearly 7 minutes ahead of 2nd place.
• Lauryn Wojcik runs the fastest second-half split among all women, charging from 8th to 3rd to finish in 2:59:40 — the biggest move of the race.
• Three women break 3:00:00, with 2nd and 3rd separated by just 39 seconds (2:59:01 vs. 2:59:40).
• Krista Drechsler, the 2023 champion (2:57:33), returns to finish 6th in 3:01:53 — still competitive in her hometown race.

Dakota Vincent made the women's race look straightforward from the gun. The 28-year-old from Scottsdale held the lead wire-to-wire and never relinquished it, crossing in 2:52:01 at a 6:34/mi clip — a pace that put nearly seven minutes of daylight between her and the rest of the field. She also posted the second-fastest women's split on the back half, meaning she didn't just survive the second 13.1 miles; she pressed through them. On a cool, misty morning through Sonoma County wine country, conditions were about as favorable as Santa Rosa gets, and Vincent took full advantage.

The real drama unfolded behind her. Madelyn Chandler, the 36-year-old local from Saint Helena, held 2nd through the halfway mark and ran a composed 6:50/mi to finish in 2:59:01. But Lauryn Wojcik was coming. The 20-year-old from Littleton sat 8th at the half, then unleashed the single fastest second-half split in the entire women's field, reeling in five runners to claim 3rd in 2:59:40. She ran a different race than Chandler in the back half — faster, hungrier — and nearly caught her. The finish times are close; the efforts to get there were not.

Elspeth McGillivray (4th, 3:00:41) made a similar move, climbing from 7th to 4th on the strength of the third-fastest back-half split among women, while Carina Nieto held steady from 5th at the half to 5th at the line in 3:00:54. Together, those five women formed one of the tightest sub-3:01 clusters the women's race has seen in recent editions.

Further back, Krista Drechsler — who won this very race in 2023 — returned to finish 6th in 3:01:53, and Danielle O'Brien (43, Sacramento) turned in a strong 7th in 3:02:17. Paige Yellen, 48, from Mineola, was the standout age-group performer in the top 15, finishing 11th in 3:09:43. Across a field of 409 women, the depth was real — and the front of it was genuinely fast.