San Francisco 10K: Erin McDonald dominates the F25-29 field

• Erin McDonald won the F25-29 race in 35:30 (5:43/mi), posting the 3rd-fastest women's closing split on the final 4.62M→Finish stretch.
• The gap from 1st to 2nd was a commanding 5:27 — McDonald finished well clear of the rest of the 590-runner field.
• Places 2 through 5 were tightly bunched: Katherine Delidow (40:57), Katherine Cronin (41:10), Emma Thomson (42:05), and Sophie Smith (42:24) — a span of just 1:27 across four runners.
• Daniela Aguilar returned to the San Francisco 10K and improved on her 2023 finish of 44:16, crossing 9th in F25-29 this year in 44:09.

Erin McDonald made the F25-29 race her own from the start. Running at 5:43/mi through the cool, overcast San Francisco morning, she held 2nd among all women throughout and never relinquished it, finishing in 35:27 — more than five minutes clear of the next F25-29 finisher. That closing stretch only reinforced her dominance: her 4.62M→Finish split ranked 3rd-fastest among all women in the race.

Behind McDonald, the battle for the podium was a genuine contest. Katherine Delidow (2nd, 40:57 at 6:35/mi) edged Katherine Cronin (3rd, 41:10 at 6:38/mi) by 13 seconds, with Cronin's slightly slower pace on the closing segment — the 9th-fastest women's split versus Delidow's 7th — making the difference. Emma Thomson (4th, 42:05) and Sophie Smith (5th, 42:24) completed a tight top-five, though Smith actually ran the 8th-fastest women's closing split — faster than Thomson's 10th — meaning she was gaining ground late but ran out of course.

Further back, the race had its own subplot worth noting: Daniela Aguilar, 27, of Oxnard, CA, had unfinished business in San Francisco. She'd crossed the line here in 2023 at 44:16; this year she came back and knocked seven seconds off that, finishing 9th in F25-29 at 44:09. Alexandra Porter (7th, 44:05) and Mary Margaret Scheunert (8th, 44:06) were separated by a single second, while Aguilar sat just three seconds further back — three runners in four seconds rounding out the top ten before Lex Katigbak (10th, 44:53) closed it out.