M15-19 Half Marathon: Sanhan Dominates as Fresno's Teens Take on 74°F Heat

• Navraj Sanhan, 19, ran 1:23:47 (6:23/mi) — winning M15-19 by 3 minutes and 19 seconds over runner-up David Valdez.
• Biggest climb of the day: Sanhan rose from 116th to 14th among men across the race, posting the 12th-fastest split in the field on the 10K-to-finish stretch.
• Valdez and Smith ran a tight early middle: both sat 47th and 48th among men at the 1M mark, then Valdez edged ahead to finish 2nd in 1:27:06 (6:39/mi), with Smith 3rd in 1:30:09 (6:53/mi).
• Ramon Payan made the race's most dramatic charge: 110th among men at the 1-mile mark, he surged all the way to 36th by the finish, posting the 31st-fastest split in the field on the back half.

Navraj Sanhan made the M15-19 race look like a time trial. The 19-year-old from Clovis crossed in 1:23:47 — a 6:23-per-mile clip in 74°F Fresno heat — and was never seriously threatened. His real statement came after the 10K mark, where he shifted gears and posted the 12th-fastest split among all runners on that closing stretch, vaulting from 116th to 14th among men. By the finish, the M15-19 title wasn't in question; the margin was.

Behind him, David Valdez and A.J. Smith ran nearly in lockstep through the opening mile — 47th and 48th among men, respectively — before Valdez gradually separated. The 15-year-old from Fresno finished in 1:27:06, holding off Smith by 2:03. Smith, at 18, rounded out the podium in 1:30:09.

The story of the back half belonged to Ramon Payan. The 16-year-old was buried in 110th place among men at the mile mark, but he ran the 31st-fastest split in the field from 10K to the finish and climbed all the way to 36th — good for 4th in M15-19 in 1:31:55. Ishaan Tandon (5th, 1:32:50) and Jaime Madrigal (6th, 1:33:32) kept things competitive through the top six, with just over nine minutes separating Sanhan's winning time from Madrigal's finish.

All 26 finishers completed a legitimate half marathon on a warm November morning in the Central Valley — no small thing for a group this young.