Two Cities Marathon M30-34: Skurski Dominates in 2:38:51

• Joseph Skurski won the M30-34 group in 2:38:51 (6:04/mi), finishing 4th among men overall — the class of the field by more than six minutes.
• Isai Orea ran the 3rd-fastest closing split (25.2M→Finish) among all men to claim 2nd in 2:44:59, finishing 8th among men overall.
• Roman Zebhauser and Benoit Landry ran virtually the same mid-race stretch (13.1M→18M), finishing 3rd in 2:50:34 and 4th in 2:52:29 — separated by under two minutes.
• Bradley Silva charged through the second half with the 20th-fastest men's split on that stretch, climbing from well outside the top 20 men to finish 5th in 2:56:19.

Joseph Skurski made this one look clean from start to finish. The 33-year-old from San Francisco moved as high as 4th among men at multiple checkpoints and never drifted far, ultimately cementing that 4th-place men's standing at the line in 2:38:51 — a 6:04/mi clip on a flat, point-to-point course that runs along the Fresno/Clovis border. His nearest M30-34 rival never got close.

That rival, Isai Orea of Madera, had the race's most compelling closing act. Running 6:18/mi overall, Orea was 8th among men at the finish after posting the 3rd-fastest men's split from 25.2 miles to the line — a genuine late surge that locked up 2nd in the age group in 2:44:59, more than six minutes behind Skurski but a convincing margin clear of the rest.

The fight for 3rd was tighter. Roman Zebhauser (Berlin) and Benoit Landry (Mountain View) ran nearly identical mid-race segments — both posting top-15 men's splits from 13.1M to 18M — and arrived at the line 1:55 apart: Zebhauser in 2:50:34, Landry in 2:52:29. Bradley Silva, meanwhile, told a different story: the Renton native was buried in the men's field early but ran the 20th-fastest men's second-half split to finish 5th in 2:56:19, the clearest mover in the top five.

Behind the top five, Paul Ramirez (3:10:55) and Blaz Serna (3:11:30) — both Fresno locals — were separated by just 35 seconds in 6th and 7th, leading a deep back half of the M30-34 field that stretched across 75 finishers.