Dent Earl top Santa Cruz County finisher in San Francisco Marathon

Aptos resident Dent Earl  was the top Santa Cruz County finisher in the San Francisco Marathon and Watsonville’s Natalia Cordoba-Velasquez was the top county finisher in the 5-kilometer on Sunday.

Earl, 32, crossed the finish line of the 26.2-mile race in 3 hours, 36 minutes, 37 seconds to place inside the top 1,000. He was 756 overall and 654 among men.

Just under 6,500 runners finished the race. Nathan Krah of Salt Lake City, Utah, won in 2:26:44, and San Francisco’s own Devon Crosby-Helms won the women’s race in 2:44:02.

Cordoba-Velasquez, 38, placed 147 overall in the 5k [26:33] and was 47th among women. That race was won by Chris Badolato of Reno, Nev., who finished in 16:41. The women’s winner was Vanessa Taylor of Spencerport, N.Y., who crossed the finish line in 19:33.

Results in this report are from the SF Marathon site.

Capitola’s Dan Perry, Santa Cruz’s Kimberly Sperling win Central Coast Circuit Races

Capitola resident Dan Perry and Santa Cruz resident Kimberly Sperling won their respective divisions in the Central Coast Circuit Races’ fourth event of the season at Fort Ord near Monterey on Saturday.

Perry [Team Bicycle Trip/Semantec] won the men’s Cat 4 race. He was followed by Fresno’s Zach Eurich [VOS Racing] in second place and San Luis Obispo’s Gary Willey [SLO Nexus Cycling Club] in third.

Sperling [Red Racing] won the women’s Cat 1/2/3 race ahead of runner-up Joan Meiners of Logan, Utah, and third-place finisher Ginger Snell of Seaside.

The fifth and second-to-last circuit race on the Central Coast slate is scheduled for July 8, also at Fort Ord.

Results in this report are from USACycling.com.

For photos of the event, check out the CCCX site.

– Christina Gullickson, on Twitter @CGullTweets

Aromas’ Kiran MacKinnon takes seventh in Chile Challenge downhill mountain bike race

Aromas’ Kiran MacKinnon, a Soquel High alum, placed seventh in the men’s pro downhill mountain bike race at the Chile Challenge in Angel Fire, N.M., on Saturday. The event was the second of the Mountain States Cup State Series.

MacKinnon [Santa Cruz/TLD/e*thirteen/Formula/Cane Creek/Fox] finished the course in 5 minutes, 55.99 seconds. Logan Binggeli of Saint George, Utah, won the race in 5:46.14. Bingelli rides for KHS.

Hans Keisler of Aptos [Troy Lee/the Hive/Smith optics] was the only other Santa Cruz County-area rider to compete. He finished 23rd in the men’s Cat 1 19-29 age division in 7:09.50. Placentia’s Jake Payne [unattached] won that race in 6:20.62.

Results in this report are from USACycling.com.

– Christina Gullickson, on Twitter @CGullTweets

UC Santa Cruz cyclist Christine Weir goes down at Nationals

Nevada City’s Christine Weir, a UC Santa Cruz team cyclist, crashed during the criterium at the 2012 USA Cycling Collegiate Road Nationals in Ogden, Utah, on Saturday. Then, she got back up, and finished her race, placing 44th.

Crash and all, Weir crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 1 minute, 32 seconds — 2:03 off winner Eileen Mazzochette of Stanford.

Hard weekend at #collnats Christine went down in the crit but still pulled off a top half in the road race all bandaged up!

— UCSC Cycling (@UCSCCycling) May 7, 2012

Earlier in the competition, Weir placed 32nd in the road race [3:03:58], which Heather Fischer of the University of Colorado-Boulder won [2:54:47].

Weir’s teammate Nicholas Newcomb was also representing the Slugs at nationals. The Nalisco native placed 38th in the road race [3:08:57], which was won by Josh Yeaton of the University of Colorado-Boulder [3:04:12].

In the criterium, Newcomb finished 83rd [1:14:39]. Yeaton won, finishing in 1:14:14.

– Christina Gullickson, on Twitter @CGullTweets