Way Too Cool 50K: Bree Lambert-Sanders rules the F50-59 field

• Lambert-Sanders wins by 32:37, finishing in 5:00:04 (9:40/mi) — the most commanding margin on the F50-59 podium.
• Age 56, fastest in the group — Lambert-Sanders was the oldest of the top four finishers and still the quickest on the day.
• Lambert-Sanders posted the 7th-fastest women's split on the ALT→HWY 49 segment, the standout individual split performance in the F50-59 field.
• Twelve women finished across a span of 3:20:49 from first to last, with the top five all under 6:32.

Bree Lambert-Sanders of San Jose put together a controlled, confident race from the opening miles. She entered the women's field in 10th place early, slipped briefly to 11th, then climbed back to 9th among all women — a position she held through the final three checkpoints. That steadiness translated into a wire-to-wire win in the F50-59 group, and her 9:40/mi average tells the story of someone who ran well within the race's demands rather than scrambling to hold on.

Behind her, Ilyce Shugall (also 50, from San Rafael) ran a composed race of her own, finishing 2nd in the group at 5:32:41 — 16th among all women — and logging the 16th-fastest women's split on the Fire Station→Quarry segment. Sabrina van Horn, also 50 and racing on home turf in Auburn, took 3rd at 6:09:14, matching Shugall's best segment on that same Fire Station→Quarry stretch with the 18th-fastest women's split there. The two 50-year-olds bookending the podium behind a 56-year-old winner made for one of the more quietly interesting stories of the morning.

The race for 4th and 5th was the closest battle in the group: Susan Truong (55, Folsom) finished in 6:25:23, with Leah Cox (53, Fair Oaks) just 5:56 back at 6:31:19. Cox actually ran the 35th-fastest women's split on Fire Station→Quarry — sharper than Truong's best segment — but couldn't quite close the gap. From 6th through 12th, the field spread out across a further two-hour window, with Jennifer James of Roseville completing the course in 8:20:53 to round out all twelve finishers.