F45-49: Baglietto edges Barrett in a two-second thriller

• Alejandra Baglietto won the F45-49 age group in 46:35 (7:30/mi), posting the 6th-fastest women's closing split from 1M to the finish.
• Teri Barrett crossed just two seconds back in 46:37 — same pace on the clock, but Baglietto had her beat by a sliver.
• A 11:24 gap separated 2nd from 3rd: Audrey Peach took the final podium spot in 58:01 (9:20/mi), with Maila Baker only 20 seconds behind her in 4th.
• 56 women finished in the F45-49 age group, with the top two running nearly 12 minutes faster than the rest of the podium.

The headline story in F45-49 was one of the tightest finishes of the morning. Baglietto and Barrett ran virtually identical races — both averaging 7:30 per mile through 74°F Fresno heat — but Baglietto was the sharper closer, posting the 6th-fastest women's split from the 1-mile mark to the finish. Barrett was right on her heels with the 7th-fastest split in that same stretch, which tells you these two were racing each other hard all the way to the line. The result: a two-second margin after 6.2 miles.

What makes that duel even more striking is how they got there. Both women moved up dramatically through the women's field as the race progressed — Baglietto climbing from 14th to 3rd among women, Barrett from 15th to 4th. They didn't just hold position; they hunted people down in the back half, which explains the blistering closing splits despite the warm conditions.

Behind them, the race had a clear break point. Peach (58:01) and Baker (58:21) ran a composed, well-matched pair of efforts at roughly 9:20–9:23 per mile to claim 3rd and 4th in the age group. Then came a cluster of seven runners — Lewis, Hosoda, Maranan, Kim, and Alaniz among them — all finishing between 1:00:06 and 1:00:55, a window of under 50 seconds across five athletes. That kind of mid-pack compression makes for a competitive age group well beyond the podium.