Two Cities Marathon M60-64: Dain Thien Pulls Clear for the Win

• Dain Thien (San Jose, CA, age 60) took the M60-64 title in 3:50:21 (8:47/mi), finishing nearly 9½ minutes ahead of the runner-up.
• Stephen Mendyk and Javier Cruz staged the closest battle of the day — 2nd and 3rd separated by just 2 seconds (3:59:39 vs. 3:59:41), with Mendyk holding the edge.
• Jiming Huang posted the strongest late surge among the chasers, climbing from outside the top 360 among men in the early miles all the way to 283rd by the finish.
• Seven men aged 60–64 toed the line in Fresno on a warm, clear November morning — 74°F with little wind to offer relief.

Dain Thien ran a controlled but purposeful race. He entered the men's field around 185th early on, drifted back through the middle miles as the heat took its toll on the field, then steadily reeled off positions from mile 19 onward — moving from 214th at that checkpoint all the way to 172nd at the finish. His closing stretch from mile 23 to 25.2 was among the sharper efforts in the men's field at that stage, ranking 137th on that segment. At 8:47/mi for 26.2 miles on a warm day, it was a convincing M60-64 victory.

The race for 2nd was an entirely different drama. Stephen Mendyk (Fresno, CA, age 64) and Javier Cruz (Bakersfield, CA, age 63) ran virtually the entire second half in each other's shadow. Mendyk ran the second half more evenly, while Cruz was the one making up ground late — posting the 170th-fastest split in the men's field from mile 23 to 25.2, compared to Mendyk's 216th-fastest split over the full second half. Cruz closed the gap but couldn't quite complete the overtake, finishing 2 seconds back in 3:59:41 to Mendyk's 3:59:39.

Lance Rensch (Sioux Falls, SD, age 62) crossed 4th in 4:15:48, while Jiming Huang (Hayward, CA, age 61) rounded out the top five in 4:19:36 after a steady climb through the men's field all race long. Roehl Caragao (Fresno, CA, age 62) finished 6th in 4:48:29, and Rafael Pinto (Bakersfield, CA, age 60) completed the M60-64 field in 5:16:32 — a solid effort on a day when the heat made every mile earned.