Rocket City Marathon M30-34: Lemon Holds Off Gilpin in a Sub-2:36 Showdown

• Chris Lemon won the M30-34 group in 2:34:15 (5:53/mi), the only finisher in the group to break 2:35.
• John Gilpin pushed him all the way, finishing just 55 seconds back in 2:35:10 — the closest gap on the podium.
• Benjamin Price claimed 3rd in 2:46:52, more than 11 minutes behind Gilpin but posting the strongest late-race legs, climbing from 23rd to 14th among men between the opening 10K and the finish.
• Jayson Perry of Huntsville ran the home-crowd role well, placing 6th in 2:53:45 — one of three locals in the top 20.

The M30-34 race at Rocket City was decided at the front by two runners operating in a different gear from everyone else. Chris Lemon (Dayton, OH) and John Gilpin (Chattanooga, TN) were locked together through the opening 10K, running 4th and 5th among the men, and they stayed in formation through the half before Lemon edged clear. Lemon moved up to 3rd among men by the half and held that position to the tape, averaging a relentless 5:53 per mile in 70°F heat and 17 mph winds. Gilpin's 5:55/mi average tells you just how close this was — 55 seconds over 26.2 miles is a razor-thin margin in those conditions.

Benjamin Price (Louisville, KY) ran a completely different kind of race. He was 23rd among men at the 10K mark, looking like a mid-pack story, but he ran the back half of the course better than almost anyone in the field — posting the 6th-fastest split among men from 31K to the finish — and arrived at the line in 2:46:52, good for 3rd in the M30-34 group. That's a gap of over 11 minutes to Gilpin, so the podium was never truly in doubt, but Price's negative-split charge through difficult late-race conditions was the most compelling move of the day outside the top two.

Fourth through seventh were tightly bunched between 2:50:01 (Joe Ainsworth) and 2:53:54 (Brandon Page), a span of under four minutes across four runners. Torey Stallsmith (Polk City, IA) slotted in at 5th in 2:51:09, while Perry and Page — both from Louisville — sandwiched him on either side of the 2:53 mark to round out a competitive top seven in a field of 89.