Two Cities 10K: Betsy Clemings Rules the F65-69 Field

• Betsy Clemings won the F65-69 age group in 1:07:20 (10:50/mi), finishing 172nd among women overall.
• Evelyn Sue Sharwood took 2nd in 1:13:38 — a 6:18 gap back, but she ran the strongest closing stretch in the group, posting the 237th-fastest women's split from 1M to the finish to climb from 294th to 251st among women.
• Frances Carmona finished 3rd in 1:24:04, also surging through the back half to move from 404th to 335th among women.
• Bertha Soto (4th, 1:35:18) and Cheryl Carlson (5th, 1:43:29) rounded out the five-woman field, separated by 8:11.

Betsy Clemings of Clovis made the F65-69 race her own from the start. Running 10:50/mi on a warm November morning in Fresno — 74°F and sunny — she crossed in 1:07:20 and never relinquished her age-group lead, holding steady at 172nd among women from the first checkpoint to the finish line.

The more dramatic story unfolded behind her. Evelyn Sue Sharwood entered the final stretch of the race sitting 294th among women, then shifted gears. Her 1M-to-finish split was the 237th-fastest among women in the field — a clear step up from where she'd been — and she climbed 43 spots to finish 251st among women, crossing in 1:13:38 at 11:51/mi to claim 2nd. Frances Carmona pulled off a similar move, rising from 404th to 335th among women over that same closing stretch to take 3rd in 1:24:04 (13:32/mi).

Bertha Soto ran a different kind of race. She actually faded across the back half, slipping from 366th to 401st among women before finishing 4th in 1:35:18 at 15:20/mi. Cheryl Carlson, the youngest of the five at 65, closed out the group in 1:43:29 — a 16:39/mi effort that placed her 436th among women at the line.

Five women, five different stories — but Clemings' wire-to-wire command made the result in F65-69 clear long before the finish.