Two Cities Marathon 10K — M60-64: Kurtze Claims the Age Group in a Tight Three-Way Battle

• David Kurtze (age 64) won the M60-64 group in 50:09 (8:04/mi), the oldest man in the field taking the top spot.
• Chris Fiorentino pressed him hard, finishing 2nd in 50:26 — just 17 seconds back.
• Ernie Escobedo rounded out the podium in 3rd at 51:54, with the top three separated by under two minutes.
• A wide gap then opened to 4th-place George Wheeler (1:05:50), with five more finishers spread across the back half of the field.

The headline story in M60-64 is a 64-year-old beating a field of younger men — David Kurtze, the oldest competitor in the group, crossed in 50:09 at an 8:04/mi clip to claim 1st. That's a performance that demands respect on its own terms, and Kurtze earned it by pulling away over the final stretch: he moved from 32nd to 25th among the men in the second half of the race, posting the 26th-fastest closing split (1M to finish) in the men's field.

Chris Fiorentino made him work for it. The 61-year-old from Fresno ran a nearly identical race — 8:07/mi average, finishing in 50:26 — and his own closing surge (27th-fastest men's split on that same segment) mirrors Kurtze's. Both men were accelerating late; Kurtze simply had the edge, holding Fiorentino off by 17 seconds. Ernie Escobedo (51:54, 8:21/mi) completed a strong podium, running 1:45 behind Fiorentino and also moving up through the men's field in the closing mile.

After those three, the race spread out considerably. George Wheeler (4th, 1:05:50, 10:36/mi) finished nearly 14 minutes behind Escobedo, and John Peck (5th, 1:13:37, 11:51/mi) actually lost ground in the closing stretch, dropping from 127th to 141st among the men — one of the few in this group to fade late. Glenn Tokubo (6th, 1:19:57), Jose Antonio Antero (7th, 1:22:35), Randy Barber (8th, 1:28:37), and Douglas Tiu (9th, 1:30:47) rounded out the nine-man field, with Tiu making the trip from Crosby, TX to close it out in 1:30:47 at 14:37/mi.