RALEIGH - Tim Surface's home-course advantage paid off just a few miles past the halfway point of the Sony Ericsson City of Oaks Marathon on Sunday morning.

The Raleigh Web designer and former University of Tulsa distance runner had claimed the lead about six miles into the 26.2-mile race, and by the time he finished a punishing climb up Trinity Road on Mile 12, it had been miles since he last heard the trailing footsteps of a rival. Surface found himself gliding along along a crushed gravel trail of Umstead State Park, one of his favorite training routes.

It was a welcome 3.5-mile stretch of solitude before the course spit him back out on Ebenezer Church Road en route to his first marathon victory.

"There were still some pretty big hills from miles 21 to 25 that put the screws to my legs. That hurt," Surface said.

It didn't hurt enough to keep him from finishing the challenging course in an unofficial time of 2 hours, 35 minutes, 22.7 seconds, nearly three minutes ahead of second-place finisher John Piggott (2:38:14.7) of Williamsburg, Va. Another Raleigh resident, N.C. State graduate student Taisuke Sumiyoshi, 28, placed third with a time of 2:45:46.

Surface and top female finisher Gloria Kuiken-Iverson, 39, of Lincolnwood, Ill., each won $1,000 as the marathon winners and $500 bonuses as the top U.S. finishers in a race dominated by area runners.

Surface was one of 11 Triangle men to finish among the top 15 male runners. Four of the top eight female finishers were from either Raleigh or Chapel Hill.

Run on the same day as the celebrated New York City Marathon, the City of Oaks event drew 3,828 registrants. Of that number, 815 completed the marathon, and 2,308 finished the 13.1-mile half marathon. The event marked Raleigh's first organized marathon since another race backed by different organizers folded after a three-year run that ended in 2002.

Surface, who went from running 130 miles a week last year to about 80 miles a week this summer while training for a series of triathlons, entered Sunday's race aiming to use it as a tuneup for the much flatter USATF N.C. Association Marathon Championship on the Outer Banks next weekend.

Kuiken-Iverson, on the other hand, was just happy to hold off her twin sister Anne Kuiken-Popek of Greensboro, who finished less than two minutes back to take second place in the women's division. A married mother of four, Kuiken-Iverson, 39, made her move around the 20-mile mark coming out of Umstead State Park to separate from her sister and claim her first marathon victory in six races.

"This was the hardest marathon I've ever run, because of the hills," Kuiken-Iverson said. "My sister always seems to pick hilly marathons, but this is my first marathon win, so I'm very, very happy."

Both sisters ran track at DePaul University. Kuiken-Popek's fan club along the route Sunday included runners from the Jamestown Ragsdale High cross country team she coaches.

"She kind of put a pretty good surge on between [miles] 20 and 21, and I never closed it back," Kuiken-Popek said.

Jynocel Basweti, 20, led the accompanying half marathon from start to finish and finished in 1:05:19, more than three minutes ahead of fellow Chapel Hill resident Wilson Chepkwony, 25.

Irene Mogaka, 22, also of Chapel Hill, was the top female finisher in the half marathon, finishing in 1:17:43. Raleigh resident Kristin Price, 25, finished 13 seconds behind Mogaka for second place in the women's division.

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