M15-19 at the Shamrock Marathon: Curulla runs away from the field

• Ben Curulla (18, Virginia Beach) won M15-19 in 2:53:21 — a 6:37/mi average that put nearly 18 minutes of daylight between him and 2nd place.
• Avery Reynolds (18) held 2nd comfortably, finishing in 3:11:29 (7:18/mi) — 8:05 ahead of 3rd-place Carson Redmon.
• Carson Redmon (18, Vienna) posted the 41st-fastest Half→25K split among all women, the standout segment marker in his 3:19:34 run for 3rd.
• 25 teenagers finished a full marathon in 71°F heat with a 17 mph wind off the Virginia Beach coast — no small feat at any age.

Ben Curulla simply ran a different race than everyone else in the M15-19 group. His 6:37/mi pace held up across 26.2 miles in genuinely tough conditions — warm, humid, and windy — and his 2:53:21 finish was the kind of number that commands attention. He tracked between 12th and 15th in the men's field through much of the race, a strong position in a full open field, and he crossed the line with the clearest margin of the day in his age group.

Behind him, Avery Reynolds (3:11:29) and Carson Redmon (3:19:34) ran their own solid races. Reynolds was moving well through the middle of the course before fading in the men's field late — a common story on a day when the back half of a Virginia Beach marathon can turn punishing in the wind and heat. Redmon, meanwhile, had one of the stronger middle segments of anyone in the group, registering the 41st-fastest Half→25K split in the broader women's field — a sign he was still pressing at mile 15 when others were starting to manage the damage.

The rest of the M15-19 field spread across a wide range, from Curran Workman's 3:37:11 in 4th to a cluster of finishers in the 3:40s and 3:50s. Jackson Player and Michael Wojciechowski Jr., both 16, deserve a mention for finishing 6th and 7th respectively — completing a full marathon as 16-year-olds in those conditions is a real accomplishment. All told, 25 young runners got to the finish line on a day that tested everyone on the course.