M35-39 at Shamrock Marathon: Greenlaw runs away from the field

• Jerry Greenlaw won M35-39 in 2:27:28 (5:37/mi), more than 30 minutes clear of second place — the dominant performance of the age group.
• Theodore Stiger was the day's biggest mover, climbing from outside the top 80 among men to 26th with the 13th-fastest split in the field on the 35K–25.2M stretch.
• Places 2–4 were separated by just 17 seconds: Dylan Dille (2:57:37), Alexander King (2:57:44), and Theodore Stiger (2:57:45).
• Chris Geraghty rounded out the top 5 in 2:59:37, making four of the top five finishers sub-3:00 — no small feat in 71°F heat with a 17 mph wind off the Virginia Beach coast.

Jerry Greenlaw's victory in M35-39 was something else entirely. The 37-year-old from Alexandria ran 2:27:28 at a 5:37/mi clip — a pace the rest of the age group simply couldn't touch — and posted the fastest men's split on the 5K–10K segment in the entire men's field. He moved from 3rd among men at the opening checkpoint to 1st by the halfway mark and never looked back, finishing over half an hour ahead of his nearest age-group rival. On a warm, windy day in Virginia Beach, that margin is remarkable.

Behind him, the race for the podium was a different kind of drama — tight, grinding, and decided in the final miles. Dylan Dille (2:57:37), Alexander King (2:57:44), and Theodore Stiger (2:57:45) crossed within a 17-second window after 26.2 miles. Stiger's finish was the most dramatic of the three: he was 90th among men through the early checkpoints, then unleashed the 13th-fastest split in the field between 35K and the 25.2-mile mark to vault into the age-group podium.

Chris Geraghty held off Mike Kapetanakis (2:59:53) for 5th in a finish that also came down to the wire — just 16 seconds between them. The depth in this age group was real: 178 finishers made it to the line, and the top five all broke or brushed three hours despite conditions that had no business being kind to fast marathon running.