Way Too Cool 10M: Mintz masters the M50-59 field

• J.r. Mintz (age 59, Hercules) won the M50-59 group in 1:50:04 at an 11:00/mi pace, finishing ahead of Daniel Ogburn by 2 minutes and 25 seconds.
• Daniel Ogburn posted the 12th-fastest split on the Fire Station→HWY 49 segment among the women's field — the sharpest mid-race split in the M50-59 group on that stretch.
• The gap from 1st to 5th spanned just over 17 minutes; the gap from 5th to 11th blew out to 45 minutes, marking a clear split in the field.
• Brian King and Michael Reo (both age 58) finished 6th and 7th just 22 seconds apart, the tightest battle of the back half.

On a warm March morning in Cool — 69°F with broken clouds and low humidity — eleven men in the M50-59 group toed the line at Way Too Cool. J.r. Mintz, the oldest finisher in the group at 59, ran the most composed race of the day, clocking 1:50:04 and never relinquishing his position. His 11:00/mi average held firm from start to finish, and his 15th-fastest split on the HWY 49→Finish segment showed he had enough left in the tank to close strong.

Daniel Ogburn (54, San Carlos) and Jim Shepherd (56, Lafayette) gave chase but couldn't close the gap, finishing in 1:52:29 and 1:54:48 respectively. Ogburn's 12th-fastest Fire Station→HWY 49 split was the best in the M50-59 group on that segment — a genuine mid-race surge — but Mintz had built enough of a cushion that it didn't change the outcome. Shepherd held steady in 3rd, just 2:19 behind Ogburn.

Patrick Bettencourt and Sam Fiandaca rounded out the top five, with Fiandaca's 2:07:40 landing him nearly 13 minutes back from the winner. Then the field stretched considerably: Brian King (2:15:54) and Michael Reo (2:16:16) waged the afternoon's closest duel, separated by just 22 seconds at the line. Matt Buys closed out the group in 2:52:50, completing a spread of over an hour from first to last — a reminder of just how wide the M50-59 experience can run across ten miles of Sierra foothills trail.