Women's Half Marathon: Murphy Dominates from Gun to Tape

• Grayson Murphy won in 1:18:32 (5:59/mi), leading the women's field wire-to-wire and posting the fastest women's split on the opening 1M→10K segment.
• Jimena Rivera (2nd, 1:23:37) and Mary Craig (3rd, 1:23:57) separated the podium by just 20 seconds — but Candace Archer was the race's biggest mover, climbing from 6th to 4th with the 3rd-fastest women's closing split.
• Sarah Tomamichel (5th, 1:30:52) faded one spot from her early 4th-place position, finishing nearly six minutes clear of 6th.
• Alisha Brown returned to Two Cities after a 1:33:58 here in 2025, crossing 19th this year in 1:39:48.

Grayson Murphy made this race look like a training run. Running 5:59/mi through a cool, breezy Fresno morning — 53°F with a 13 mph wind — she held first place at every checkpoint from the opening mile through the finish, never once ceding the lead. Her early 1M→10K split was the fastest among all women, setting a tone the field simply couldn't answer. She finished in 1:18:32, more than five minutes ahead of the next woman.

Behind her, the battle for second and third was tight but settled. Rivera, just 20 years old out of nearby Madera, ran a composed 6:23/mi to claim second in 1:23:37, posting the second-fastest women's 1M→10K split — matching Murphy's aggressive early tempo. Craig (1:23:57, 6:24/mi) locked in third and held it throughout, her strongest segment coming on the 10K→8.8M stretch where she logged the second-fastest women's split. Their finish times were close; their efforts to get there were different stories.

The race's most dynamic performance belonged to Candace Archer. Starting the opening segment in 6th, she steadily worked her way forward, and when it mattered most — the 12.1M→Finish stretch — she produced the third-fastest closing split among women to seal 4th in 1:25:57. Meanwhile, Sarah Tomamichel of Clovis had the 5th-fastest women's early split and ran in 4th through the first segment before fading slightly to finish 5th in 1:30:52 — still a commanding gap over the rest of the field, with 6th-place Sam Perez (Merced) crossing in 1:33:13.