M25-29: Ingalls Edges Clark in a Photo-Finish Battle at Rocket City

• Winner: Holt Ingalls (28, Brookhaven, GA) — 1:29:25 at 6:49/mi, edging Dylan Clark by three seconds in the closest finish of the M25-29 group.
• The twist: Clark actually crossed the 10K mat ahead of Ingalls in the men's field standings, but Ingalls ran the stronger 10K→Finish leg to flip the result.
• Gap to third: Daniel Capparella (27, Nashville, TN) finished in 1:38:33 — more than nine minutes back, making the top two a race of their own.
• Hometown battle at the back: Four of the bottom six finishers called Madison, AL home, with Raymond Cribbs (2:12:47), Scott Godchaux (2:13:09), and Nathan Cline (2:14:43) separated by just 1:56 across three spots.

The headline story in the M25-29 group at Rocket City's Front Half was a two-man race that came down to the wire. Holt Ingalls of Brookhaven, GA and Dylan Clark of nearby Owens Cross Roads, AL were locked together at 6:49/mi average — identical on paper — but the places tell the real story. Clark held a slight edge through the first half of the race, sitting one spot ahead of Ingalls in the men's field at the 10K mark. What followed was a decisive move by Ingalls: he posted the 3rd-fastest 10K→Finish split in the men's field, while Clark's 4th-fastest on that same stretch wasn't quite enough. Ingalls crossed first, 1:29:25 to Clark's 1:29:22 — a margin of three seconds that the timing system resolved cleanly, Ingalls in front.

Daniel Capparella (27, Nashville, TN) rounded out the podium in 1:38:33 at 7:31/mi, but the real narrative behind him was a fade — he slipped from 9th to 10th in the men's field over the back half, posting only the 12th-fastest 10K→Finish split in the group. Evan Patrick and Branson Teachey (both 8:15/mi, both 1:48:14) played out a mirror story in reverse: Patrick surged from 24th to 20th in the men's field on the closing leg, while Teachey faded from 15th to 21st, and the timing system placed Patrick 4th and Teachey 5th.

With 60°F temperatures and 85% humidity on race morning, conditions were muggy for December in Huntsville — not brutal, but not fast. That makes Ingalls and Clark's sub-1:30 efforts all the more impressive. Grant Severyn (25, Huntsville, AL) closed out the 13-man field in 2:25:11, finishing nearly an hour behind the winner but completing a group that spanned a remarkable 55-minute range from front to back.