M20-24: Benjamin Reyes Runs Away from a 60-Man Field in Fresno

• Reyes wins in 1:15:19 (5:45/mi), moving from 72nd among men at the 1-mile mark to 4th among men by the finish — a relentless charge through the field.
• The gap at the top is decisive: Steven Lancaster's 1:17:01 puts him 1:42 back in 2nd, and Pierson Lamborn's 1:24:14 trails by nearly nine minutes in 3rd.
• Lancaster's closing kick stood out: his 10K-to-finish split ranked 7th among men — fast, but not enough to close on Reyes, whose closing split ranked 3rd among men over the same stretch.
• 60 men finished in the M20-24 group, with times ranging from 1:15:19 to well past the 1:54 mark of 20th-place Edgar Pérez.

Benjamin Reyes didn't just win the M20-24 group — he dismantled it on the move. Starting the race buried in 72nd place among men, he had already climbed to 11th by the 10K mark, and by the finish line he had hauled himself all the way to 4th among men. At 5:45 per mile through 74°F Fresno air, that's not a half marathon run on feel — that's a calculated, sustained attack from start to tape.

The real story of the race was the closing leg. From 10K to the finish, Reyes posted the 3rd-fastest men's split in the entire field, confirming that his surge was no early blowout — he was still accelerating when others were managing. Lancaster, to his credit, answered with the 7th-fastest men's closing split and a 1:17:01 that would be the headline in most fields, but Reyes had simply built too much of a cushion to be caught.

Behind the top two, the M20-24 podium closed with Lamborn in 1:24:14 and Flores in 1:25:44 — a tight 1:30 gap between 3rd and 4th. From 5th place onward, the field spread out considerably, with Kennedy Magana crossing in 1:36:54 and the rest of the top 20 fanning out through the mid-to-late 1:40s and 1:50s. Reyes, though, was already long done — the clear, commanding winner of the morning.