Rocket City Half Marathon: Kanita Reed Dominates F45-49

• Kanita Reed won the F45-49 age group in 1:42:02 (7:47/mi), finishing 5th among all women and posting the 4th-fastest women's split from 8M to the finish.
• Kate McCurdy was a clear runner-up in 1:46:20, holding 5th-to-16th among women with the 18th-fastest women's closing split — more than four minutes back of Reed but well clear of the rest.
• Rie Takesue rounded out the podium in 1:58:00, finishing 52nd among women — a gap of nearly 12 minutes to McCurdy that underscores just how dominant the top two were.
• Maya Ellison (4th, 2:01:00) dropped from 55th to 66th among women on the back half, signaling a fade; Erica Studdard (5th, 2:04:27) moved the opposite direction, climbing from 82nd to 79th.

Kanita Reed, 45, from Hoover, AL, was never seriously challenged in the F45-49 age group. Running 7:47 per mile on a mild December morning in Huntsville — 59°F, light wind, overcast — she held 5th among all women from the 8-mile mark through the tape, and her closing split ranked 4th among every woman in the field. That kind of sustained speed across the full race is a statement, not a fluke.

Kate McCurdy matched Reed's composure if not her pace, climbing from 17th to 16th among women over the final stretch with the 18th-fastest women's closing split in the field. Her 1:46:20 at 8:07/mi was a legitimate performance in its own right — it just had the misfortune of landing in the same age group as Reed's dominant effort.

Behind the top two, the race told a different story. Rie Takesue held third comfortably at 1:58:00, but the gap between her and McCurdy (nearly 12 minutes) was almost as large as the gap between Takesue and 11th-place Karey Thompson (12 minutes further back). Maya Ellison's slide from 55th to 66th among women in the closing miles handed momentum to Erica Studdard, who ticked forward to claim fifth. Of the 42 finishers in the F45-49 group, the top two ran a race that belonged in a different conversation entirely.