Men's 10K: Skime Runs Away in the Cold

• Brendan Skime wins in 35:40 (5:44/mi), pulling clear of a 71-man field on a frigid 39°F morning in Bismarck.
• The top three were decided early and stayed that way — Skime, Kyle Downs (36:54), and Kristofer Williams (37:45) held 1st, 2nd, and 3rd from the opening 5K all the way to the finish line.
• Skime, Downs, and Williams posted the three fastest second-half splits among the men, each turning up the pace after the 5K mark — with Skime's closing leg the fastest of all.
• Gary Anderson, 54, finished 7th in 42:26 — one of the standout performances in a men's field that spanned from 15-year-old Mark Seidling (20th, 50:39) to Anderson himself.

Brendan Skime made the 39°F Bismarck morning look comfortable. The 31-year-old from Pelican Rapids, MN, clocked 35:40 at 5:44/mi — never relinquishing the lead from start to finish — and capped it with the fastest men's split on the back half of the course. It was a wire-to-wire statement.

Behind him, the podium battle was equally locked in. Kyle Downs, a local Bismarck runner, held second the entire way and finished in 36:54 (5:56/mi), while Kristofer Williams of Minot crossed third in 37:45 (6:05/mi). Both posted the second- and third-fastest closing splits among the men, meaning the top three didn't just hold their places — they earned them by running the second 5K harder. The gap from Skime to Williams was just over two minutes, with Downs splitting the difference squarely in between.

The battle for fourth and fifth told a slightly different story. Nathan Stamstad (39:06) and Tom Moldenhauer (39:41) traded the fourth-fastest closing split between them — Moldenhauer actually ran the faster second-half leg of the two, but Stamstad's earlier work kept him a comfortable 35 seconds clear at the line.

Further back, the men's field offered plenty of intrigue. Gary Anderson of Minot turned in a 42:26 at age 54, finishing 7th overall among the men — a sharp performance in cold, humid conditions. At the other end of the age spectrum, 15-year-old Mark Seidling of Bismarck posted a 50:39 to claim 20th. Seventy-one men finished the race in total; Skime simply made it look like a training run.