Two Cities 10K — F25-29: Crispin surges from the back to take the age group

• Anselma Crispin won the F25-29 age group in 56:35 (9:06/mi), the fastest finish in the group by 1:16.
• Crispin moved from 60th among women at the 1-mile mark all the way to 25th among women at the finish — the most dramatic climb of anyone on the podium.
• Lisa Xiong and Acacia Langford finished just 4 seconds apart (57:57 and 58:01), with Xiong running the 31st-fastest women's split on the final stretch to Langford's 32nd — a catch-up that nearly wasn't enough.
• The top 5 were separated by under 2 minutes, with Kaylah Vasquez rounding out that group in 5th at 58:27.

Anselma Crispin of Caruthers didn't look like a winner through the first mile — she was sitting 60th among women when the field passed that mark. What followed was a relentless push through the field, posting the 21st-fastest women's split on the 1M-to-finish stretch and crossing in 56:35 at 9:06/mi. By the line she had climbed 35 spots among women to finish 25th overall in the women's field. That's not a race won from the front — that's a race hunted down from behind.

Brynn Mathis of Clovis held her position steadily, going from 28th among women early to 29th at the finish, and claimed 2nd in the age group at 57:51. Behind her, the battle for 3rd was fierce: Lisa Xiong (Fresno, 57:57) and Acacia Langford (Fresno, 58:01) both surged through the final stretch — Xiong posting the 31st-fastest women's split to Langford's 32nd — but the four-second gap between them held. Both had started the final segment well back in the women's field (56th and 51st, respectively) and finished 30th and 32nd, making the 3rd-through-4th battle one of the more entertaining late-race chases in the age group.

Kaylah Vasquez (Porterville, 58:27) and Alondra Martinez (Fresno, 58:29) closed out the top six with just two seconds between them, and Karla Mendez, Maria Larios, and Aya Shin all came through in the 58:50–58:57 window. In a 62-finisher age group that stretched well past the hour mark, the front of the F25-29 field was genuinely competitive — and Crispin's wire-to-wire charge from the back made it one of the better stories of the morning.