M15-19: Liam Bielat Runs Away With the Teen Title in Fresno

• Liam Bielat, 2:49:36 (6:28/mi) — wins M15-19 by a commanding 14:15 over runner-up Leo Friedman.
• Leo Friedman stormed home — climbing from 62nd to 29th among men in the final miles, posting the 7th-fastest men's split on the 25.2M→Finish stretch to seal 2nd place in 3:03:51.
• Zachary Ganzenhuber, 18, was the youngest finisher in the top five, crossing 5th in 3:19:09 after steadily moving up from 94th to 65th among men across the race.
• Preston Allison, just 16, completed the full 26.2 miles in 4:18:46 — the youngest in the group to finish.

Bielat owned this race from the front. The 19-year-old from Bend, OR clocked a 6:28/mi average on Two Cities' flat, Boston-qualifier course to finish in 2:49:36 — a margin so large that second place never came close. His gender place did fluctuate through the middle miles, dipping as far back as 396th at one checkpoint before he reasserted himself and closed with the 12th-fastest men's split on the 25.2M→Finish segment, finishing 12th among men overall. That late surge is the signature of a runner who found another gear when it counted.

The race for second was more of a slow-burn comeback. Friedman (3:03:51, 7:01/mi) spent much of the early going buried in the men's field — 62nd at the first checkpoint — but reeled off a relentless second half, ultimately posting that 7th-fastest men's closing split to land 29th among men and a clear 2nd in M15-19. Ejmin Hartoonian of Burbank rounded out the podium in 3:10:02 (7:15/mi), having shown early pop with the 26th-fastest men's split through the opening 1M→10K stretch before settling into a steady rhythm.

Vincent Gomez (4th, 3:18:32) and Fresno local Zachary Ganzenhuber (5th, 3:19:09) were separated by just 37 seconds, with Logan Krueger (6th, 3:23:50) not far behind. The back half of the field told a different story: Levi York (7th, 3:36:51) through Andrew James (13th, 6:25:41) spread across a wide range of efforts, but every one of these 13 teenagers covered 26.2 miles on a Sunday morning in Fresno — Bielat just did it faster than anyone else in the group by a country mile.