Two Cities Half Marathon M60-64: Soria Runs Away With It

• Hector Soria won the M60-64 group in 1:40:05 (7:38/mi), finishing more than six minutes clear of second place.
• Stephen Mendyk took second in 1:46:13 (8:06/mi), steadily climbing from 150th to 130th among men over the final stretch.
• John Rhyne and Moua Vang staged the closest battle of the day — Rhyne edged 4th in 2:05:03 to Vang's 2:05:17, just 14 seconds apart after 13.1 miles.
• 25 men finished in M60-64, with the field spread across a range from Soria's 7:38/mi down to the back of the pack.

Hector Soria of Arleta delivered the dominant performance of the M60-64 group, crossing in 1:40:05 at a 7:38-per-mile clip — a pace that put real daylight between him and everyone else from early on. His checkpoint data tells the story: he moved from 95th to 79th among men through the first major split before settling back to 90th by the finish, meaning he was charging hard through the middle miles. His 1M-to-10K split ranked 77th among all men in the field — a genuinely strong mid-race effort that underscored just how much ground he was covering.

Stephen Mendyk, running on home turf in Fresno, was the clear runner-up at 1:46:13. His 8:06/mi pace was meaningfully slower than Soria's, but Mendyk ran a composed, progressive race — moving from 150th to 130th among men by the finish, with his strongest relative segment coming in the back half, where his 10K-to-finish split ranked 134th among men.

Oscar Guzman, at 64 the oldest man on the M60-64 podium, rounded out the top three in 2:01:43 (9:17/mi). He ran a steady race of his own, climbing from 318th to 294th among men overall, and his 1M-to-10K split ranked 299th in the men's field — consistent work across the board.

The real drama for fourth and fifth was the 14-second duel between John Rhyne (2:05:03) and Moua Vang (2:05:17). Vang actually ran a faster 1M-to-10K split — ranking 319th among men compared to Rhyne's 327th on that segment — but Rhyne answered in the closing miles to hold him off by a slim margin at the line.