Rocket City Marathon M15-19: Stanger Runs Away With It

• James Stanger, 16, wins in 3:05:50 (7:05/mi) — more than three and a half minutes clear of runner-up Mark Porter.
• Top three separated by just 4:43 across a 3:05–3:10 window; fourth place Jake Radtke finished nearly 45 minutes behind them.
• Stanger posted the 18th-fastest 10K→Half split among all women in the field — a remarkable mid-race marker for a 16-year-old running his own age group.
• Jack Gallegly ran the strongest back half in the top five, moving from 244th to 187th in the men's field between the half and the finish — the biggest positive mover of the group.

James Stanger, a 16-year-old from Scottsville, KY, made this one look controlled from start to finish. Running at a 7:05/mi clip on a warm, muggy December morning — 60°F and 85% humidity is no gift for marathon legs — he built enough of a cushion that his 3:05:50 finish was never seriously in doubt. His 10K-to-half segment was quick enough to rank 18th among all women in the field, which gives real context to just how well he was moving through the middle miles.

Mark Porter (19, Colorado Springs) and John Murray (17, Harvest, AL) ran each other honest through the second half, ultimately finishing 2nd in 3:09:16 and 3rd in 3:10:33, respectively. Porter's 7:13/mi and Murray's 7:16/mi were closely matched, and both were tracking similar trajectories through the men's field — a duel that never quite boiled over into a decisive move but stayed tight all the way to the line.

Behind the top three, the M15-19 field split into two distinct clusters. Jake Radtke (4th, 3:55:09) and Jack Gallegly (5th, 3:57:19) were separated by just over two minutes, with Gallegly's strong late surge — climbing more than 50 places in the men's field from the half onward — the standout subplot of the mid-pack. Kyle Phillips and Tristan Davis (6th and 7th) finished within 33 seconds of each other at 4:14. All 14 finishers got it done, with Clay Fanning closing out the group in 6:14:12.