M55-59: Plyler Holds Off Croft in a Wet Napa Showdown

• David Plyler (56, Bakersfield) won M55-59 in 3:11:35 (7:18/mi), closing with the 63rd-fastest men's split on the final 20M-to-finish stretch.
• Steve Croft (56, Redwood City) finished 2nd in 3:12:53 — just 1:18 back — after running the 91st-fastest men's split on the 6.2M–13.1M middle stretch.
• Gary Auten (56, Sunnyvale) rounded out the podium in 3:19:09 (7:36/mi), climbing from 170th to 130th among men on his way to 3rd.
• 4th and 5th were separated by a single second: Sam Liang (3:28:25) edged Jingwen Wang (3:28:26), both averaging 7:57/mi.

Forty-one-degree rain and a damp Napa Valley course set the stage for a hard-fought M55-59 race, and David Plyler navigated it better than anyone. Running 7:18/mi across 26.2 miles, he held a steady gender position around 102nd through the first half before a late surge — posting the 63rd-fastest men's split over the final 6.2 miles — lifted him to 94th among men at the finish and, more importantly, to the top of the M55-59 standings.

Steve Croft made the middle stretch his moment. He came through the first 6.2 miles in 51st among men — the strongest early position of any M55-59 finisher — before gradually fading back through the pack, finishing 98th among men and 2nd in the group in 3:12:53. That mid-race charge, where he posted the 91st-fastest men's split between miles 6.2 and 13.1, couldn't quite sustain itself to the line, but it kept him within striking distance of Plyler for most of the race. The 1:18 gap at the finish tells the story of a competitive but ultimately decisive win.

Gary Auten was the division's most consistent climber. Starting 170th among men and still 178th at the halfway mark, he shifted gears over the back half — posting the 93rd-fastest men's split on the 20M-to-finish segment — and crossed in 3:19:09 to claim 3rd, having moved all the way up to 130th among men. Behind him, the race for 4th was almost too close to call: Sam Liang (3:28:25) and Jingwen Wang (3:28:26) ran virtually the same race for 26.2 miles, with Liang's one-second advantage settling it. Bradley Fenner (3:33:32) and Mark Selwyn (3:33:36) staged a near-identical photo finish of their own for 6th and 7th, four seconds apart across a full marathon in the rain.