Two Cities Half Marathon F30-34: Alsup defends her title in dominant fashion

• Courtney Alsup, 1:19:41 (6:05/mi): Won the F30-34 age group and the women's race outright — defending her 2023 Two Cities title (1:23:00) with a 3:19 improvement.
• Dennise Salazar-Maravilla, 1:31:21: Climbed from 6th among women at the 10K to finish 3rd, posting the 6th-fastest women's split on the 10K-to-finish stretch to lock up 2nd in the age group.
• 11:39 gap: The margin between Alsup and runner-up Salazar-Maravilla — a race run in two entirely different gears.
• Jillian Kay, 1:38:35: The most active mover on the leaderboard, climbing from 13th among women at the start to 11th by the finish, posting the 13th-fastest women's split on the back half.

Courtney Alsup came to Fresno with a title to defend, and she made the defense look effortless. The 30-year-old from Bakersfield sat atop the women's field from the first checkpoint to the last, running 6:05 per mile across 13.1 miles to win the age group and the entire women's race. Her 1:19:41 — a 3:19 improvement on her 2023 winning time of 1:23:00 — was backed by the 4th-fastest women's split on the opening 1M-to-10K segment, a sign she was running controlled and building. She was never threatened.

Behind her, the real racing happened in the second half. Dennise Salazar-Maravilla of Fresno sat 6th among women through the 10K, then shifted gears, posting the 6th-fastest women's split from 10K to the finish to surge to 3rd in the women's field and 2nd in the age group at 1:31:21. The anonymous third-place finisher (1:35:37, 7:18/mi) also moved through the field on the back half, posting the 9th-fastest women's 10K-to-finish split to hold off Jillian Kay of San Francisco, who crossed 4th in 1:38:35.

Kay was the most dynamic mover of the group — she ran as low as 16th among women through the middle stretch before her 13th-fastest women's closing split pulled her back to 11th in the women's field. Allie Campbell rounded out the top five at 1:42:12, while 130 women total finished the F30-34 age group, making it one of the deeper fields on the course.