Ten minutes after winning the women's division of the Oakland Marathon on Sunday, Anna Bretan of Berkeley was holding her 6-week-old daughter and rehashing the race.

"Well, I ran slower this year," she told her family and friends. They rolled their eyes.

Sunday's win was the second in a row for Bretan, 27, who finished in 2:57:33. She was about four minutes slower than the previous year, which may have been because of a change in the course, including some brutal hills in the middle. But most likely it had something to do with giving birth just a month and a half ago.

"It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would," she said. "But I ran it more conservatively this year."

The men's winner, Chris Mocko, 26, of San Francisco set a new event record of 2:28:09 - and still had enough energy at the end of 26.2 miles to limbo under the finish-line tape instead of breaking through it like most winners.

"It was a nice, easy Sunday run," Mocko said with a grin just after crossing the finish line. He also won the Napa Valley Marathon three weeks ago and said Oakland was "kind of a recovery race, to shake out the legs."

Mocko might have been joking a little. He added that the hills were tough.

Mocko and Bretan led the pack of Bay Area runners who dominated the top finishing spots of the Oakland Marathon. More than 8,000 people registered for the third Oakland Running Festival, which includes the marathon plus a simultaneous 5K race and half marathon.

The crowd was spirited Sunday morning, probably owing partly to the fact that the dreaded rain never showed up. Instead, it was perfect running weather - cool and overcast, if a bit muddy at the finish line in Snow Park on the shore of Lake Merritt.

Rough year's respite

Spectators and participants alike said that after a rough year in Oakland - especially with the protests, marches and general turmoil related to the Occupy movement - it was gratifying to have a morning of calm and good cheer. Certainly the mood at Snow Park was very different from a few months ago, when the area was temporarily dotted with Occupy tents.

"It does the city good," said Oakland resident Katherine Gibson, 42, who was cheering on marathon and half marathon runners after finishing the 5K race earlier. "This is such a good, positive light on the city when chaos is all around us. It's one event where we're coming together and cheering each other on."

Mocko said he appreciates the small-town vibe of a marathon like Oakland's, where the winner's purse isn't big - he won $500 and a pair of plane tickets - but the atmosphere is exhilarating.

"There are a lot of happy people out there on the course," Mocko said. "Every neighborhood we went through, there were a ton of people cheering for us."

And as for Bretan, a local race means that her entire family - husband, infant and two young sons - can come to cheer her on. Running, she said with a laugh, is "the only time I get to be by myself."

Childbirth no obstacle

Last year's Oakland Marathon was her first race of that distance, which made it especially impressive that she won. This year, she was determined to use the same race as a motivation to keep running through her pregnancy and speed up her recovery from childbirth.

She ran 40-mile weeks right until she gave birth and did an easy 5-mile jog on the same day her baby, Tatum, was born. Within a week, she was back to heavy training.

Her husband said he was thrilled with her performance, although there's one downside of the mother of his children being such an incredible athlete.

"I thought it was embarrassing to be trailing behind a woman pushing a jogging stroller," said John Mullen, who is a runner like his wife but, unlike her, is not exactly competitive. "It's even more embarrassing to be trailing an eight-months-pregnant person."