Men's Half Marathon: Zachary Hine Holds Wire to Wire Through the Redwoods

• Zachary Hine wins in 1:42:51 (7:51/mi), leading the men's field from first checkpoint to finish and posting the 4th-fastest split on the final Skyline 2→Finish stretch.
• Bri Walker (2nd, 1:44:58) and Ari Backholm (3rd, 1:47:18) locked in the same positions all race long — Walker at 8:00/mi, Backholm at 8:11/mi through the Huddart County Park and Purisima Creek redwoods.
• Ari Backholm, 51, earns the podium at 8:11/mi, finishing ahead of men more than a decade younger.
• Daniel Custer (2:29:47) and Toby Davis (2:29:47) share the same displayed finish time but cross 18th and 19th — separated by a sliver the clock doesn't show.

Zachary Hine never relinquished his lead. The 38-year-old from San Bruno held first place at every checkpoint and closed it out with the 4th-fastest split on the Skyline 2→Finish segment, finishing in 1:42:51 — a 7:51/mi clip that gave the men's field its clear winner by over two minutes.

Behind him, the top three was remarkably stable. Bri Walker of Boulder, CO sat second at every checkpoint and held it to the line in 1:44:58, running 8:00/mi. Ari Backholm, a 51-year-old from Los Altos, was third at every split and third at the finish in 1:47:18 — and the story there is the age gap. Backholm outran a field that skewed considerably younger, including 4th-place Jakob Walter (1:54:10, 8:43/mi) and 5th-place Jonas Mueller (1:58:09, 9:01/mi), both in their early 30s and both unable to close the 6:50+ gap to the podium.

Ian Saunders rounded out the top six in 1:59:58, just sneaking under the two-hour mark at 9:09/mi. Then came a substantial step back to Ryan Sullivan in 7th (2:10:58) and Cole Spooner in 8th (2:12:55), with the next dozen finishers spread across the 2:14–2:30 range. Among the most notable moments late in the results: Custer and Davis both stopped the clock at 2:29:47 — 18th and 19th respectively — with timing precision alone separating them.