Two Cities Marathon F15-19: Aninon leads a teenage trio to the finish

• Anica Aninon, 3:20:31 (7:39/mi): Won the F15-19 group and finished 10th among all women — with the 7th-fastest women's split on the 23M–25.2M stretch to close it out.
• Peyton Wilson, 3:51:40 (8:50/mi): Climbed from 56th to 36th among women across the race, posting the 15th-fastest women's split on the 19.8M–23M segment in a strong second half.
• Alina Aquino, 5:15:48 (12:03/mi): Completed the F15-19 field in third, finishing 153rd among women in 5:15:48.

Three teenagers from the Central Valley toed the line at Two Cities on a warm November morning — 74°F and clear skies in Fresno — and all three made it to the finish line, which is the first thing worth saying.

Anica Aninon, 19, was the class of the F15-19 group from start to finish. She ran a disciplined 3:20:31 at a 7:39/mi clip, hovering steadily between 10th and 12th among all women throughout the race. Her best moment came late: on the 23M–25.2M stretch she posted the 7th-fastest women's split in the field, a gutsy push in the final miles when most runners are just trying to hold on. She crossed 10th among women and first in the F15-19 age group — a strong result for a 19-year-old in a full marathon field.

Peyton Wilson, 16, told a different kind of story. The Hanford runner started conservatively — 56th among women at the early checkpoints — and then quietly climbed the leaderboard for 26.2 miles. Her 19.8M–23M split was the 15th-fastest among women in the field, and by the finish she had moved all the way up to 36th among women in 3:51:40. That's a 20-place gain on the women's field in the back half of a marathon, at age 16.

Alina Aquino, 17, had a tougher afternoon on the warm Fresno course, but she saw it through to the finish in 5:15:48. Completing a marathon at 17 — in any conditions — is no small thing, and she rounds out an F15-19 group that put all three finishers across the line.