Rocket City M35-39: Hamilton Runs Away With It at 6:06 Pace

• Mark Hamilton won the M35-39 group in 2:39:49 (6:06/mi), finishing more than four minutes clear of the field.
• Dion Roberts and Justin Leach staged the race's closest battle: just 4 seconds separated 2nd from 3rd at 2:43:55 vs. 2:43:59.
• Bradley Alban was the race's biggest mover in the group, climbing from outside the top-40 among men at the 10K to 23rd by the finish — powered by one of the stronger men's splits on the HALF→31K segment.
• J Penny made a similar charge, moving from 64th among men at the 10K all the way to 34th at the line.

Mark Hamilton simply ran a different race than everyone else in M35-39. His 6:06/mi average across 26.2 miles in 70°F heat and a 17 mph wind is the kind of effort that ends conversations, and his 2:39:49 gave nobody a realistic shot at catching him. He held 8th among men through the first half before nudging up to 7th — a steady, controlled performance from front to back.

The real drama was in the chase pack. Dion Roberts (Cincinnati) and Justin Leach (Birmingham) ran virtually in lockstep for the entire second half of the race. Roberts crossed in 2:43:55, Leach in 2:43:59 — four seconds and two places decided a podium that was functionally a two-man race within a race. Leach's late push was fueled by one of the stronger closing splits in the group on the 31K-to-finish segment, but Roberts held just enough to take 2nd.

Behind the podium, Bradley Alban turned the back half of the race into a highlight reel. Starting the 10K checkpoint buried among men, he used a sharp middle segment — one of the better HALF→31K splits in the field — to climb steadily and finish 4th in M35-39 at 2:52:55. J Penny ran a similar arc, quietly working through the men's field from the 10K onward to land 5th. With 92 finishers spread across the group, there was plenty of racing happening well beyond the top five, but the front of M35-39 at Rocket City 2023 belonged to Hamilton — and it wasn't particularly close.