Shamrock Half Marathon F65-69: Joan Larsen Runs Down the Field

• Joan Larsen won the F65-69 group in 1:57:23 (8:57/mi), the only finisher under two hours among the 49 women in this age group.
• Larsen gained 146 places among women from the 10K checkpoint to the finish, a sustained charge through the back half of the race.
• Susan Sheppard (Midlothian) held 2nd in 2:05:02, nearly eight minutes back — a gap that tells the full story of how dominant Larsen's day was.
• Places 5 and 6 were separated by just 20 seconds — Linda Siino (2:20:26) and Gail Biermann (2:20:46) — the tightest battle on the podium's edge.

Joan Larsen came to Virginia Beach and made a statement. Running 8:57 per mile across 13.1 miles in 71°F heat and a 17 mph wind is a serious performance at any age, and in the F65-69 field it was untouchable. Her gender-place trajectory tells the story of how she raced: she entered the 15K-to-20K stretch sitting 520th among women and finished 460th, picking off runners steadily while others faded in the warm, blustery conditions. That 411th-fastest women's split on the 15K-to-20K segment was her sharpest stretch of the day.

Susan Sheppard of Midlothian took 2nd in 2:05:02, though her race unfolded differently — she slipped back among the women's field through the middle miles before steadying late. Janelle Fricke of Hayes, VA ran a composed race to claim 3rd in 2:09:06, gaining ground among women from the 5K mark onward and posting a strong 15K-to-20K split to secure the final podium spot. Theresa Reece rounded out the top four in 2:13:15, though she faced the opposite arc — drifting progressively back in the women's field from the 10K mark to the finish.

The battle for 5th was the afternoon's closest contest. Linda Siino and Gail Biermann crossed within 20 seconds of each other — 2:20:26 and 2:20:46 — after 13.1 miles in difficult conditions. Behind them, seven more women finished between 2:21 and 2:30, making the middle of the F65-69 field genuinely competitive. With 49 finishers total, this was a well-populated age group, and the spread from Larsen's 1:57 to the 20th finisher's 2:46 captures the full range of what race day on the Virginia Beach coast asked of everyone.