M30-39 at Way Too Cool 10M: Holcombe dominates a competitive age group

• John Holcombe won the M30-39 group in 1:36:19 (9:38/mi), finishing more than 7 minutes 56 seconds ahead of runner-up Jesus Enrique Pulido.
• James Hansen (age 31, racing on home turf in Cool, CA) climbed from 9th to 8th in the men's field across the final two segments to secure 3rd in M30-39.
• Andrew Stewart was the biggest mover in the group, advancing from 12th to 9th among the men by the finish to claim 4th in M30-39.
• The gap from 4th to 5th place was just 35 seconds (1:52:06 vs. 1:52:41) — the tightest battle on the day within the group.

John Holcombe was simply in a different race. The 36-year-old from Folsom held 5th among the men from the first checkpoint all the way to the finish, running at 9:38/mi across the 10 miles of Cool's rolling terrain. His winning margin of nearly eight minutes over Pulido wasn't a late surge — it was a wire-to-wire statement, and his split on the Fire Station→HWY 49 segment ranked 4th-fastest among the men on that stretch.

Behind him, Jesus Enrique Pulido (39, Reno) and James Hansen (31, Cool) ran steady, composed races to round out the podium. Pulido's 1:44:15 at 10:26/mi was solid throughout, while Hansen — racing practically in his own backyard — picked up a position among the men in the back half of the course, posting the 10th-fastest men's split on the HWY 49→Finish segment to seal 3rd in 1:45:41.

The real drama in M30-39 played out in the 4th-through-6th battle. Andrew Stewart (Sacramento) was the group's most aggressive mover, climbing three spots among the men to finish 4th in 1:52:06. Alexander Gomez (San Francisco) was just 35 seconds back in 5th, while Jake Johnson and Carl Kershaw were separated by only 32 seconds in 6th and 7th. At the back of the field, Emmanuel Martinez and Clint Bonachita finished in 2:25:18 and 2:27:06 respectively — completing a tough 10 miles on a warm, clear March morning in the Sierra foothills.