Rocket City Front Half: Johnston Dominates the F60-64 Field

• Kathleen Johnston won the F60-64 age group in 1:50:37 (8:26/mi), climbing from 29th to 19th among women on the back half with the 15th-fastest women's split on the 10K-to-Finish stretch.
• The gap from 1st to 2nd was 8 minutes 27 seconds — Johnston was never seriously challenged once the race unfolded.
• Three local Huntsville runners — Eugenie Candon (4th), Donna Palumbo (5th), and Irene Fischer (7th) — represented the home crowd in the F60-64 field.
• The spread from first to last across the 12 finishers was 2 hours 9 minutes 49 seconds, reflecting a wide range of paces on a warm, windy December morning.

Kathleen Johnston of Nashville made the F60-64 race her own from start to finish. Running 8:26 per mile in 70-degree heat with a 17 mph wind, she crossed in 1:50:37 — a commanding performance that left no drama at the top. What made it even more impressive was how she moved through the women's field over the final stretch, surging from 29th to 19th among all women on the 10K-to-Finish segment with the 15th-fastest women's split on that leg. She wasn't just winning her age group; she was chasing down runners across the entire women's field.

Fellow Nashvillian Martha Hayden claimed second in 1:59:04 (9:05/mi), a solid run that held steady — her gender position barely shifted from 37th to 38th across the back half, a sign of consistent, even effort. The gap to third was a substantial 26 minutes, where Elena Remais of Mahopac, New York, came in at 2:25:05 to round out the podium. Remais and fourth-place Eugenie Candon (2:28:49) were separated by just under four minutes, with Donna Palumbo (2:31:11) another two and a half minutes back in fifth — making positions three through five the tightest racing in the group.

Further down the field, Cindy Kosan (6th, 2:40:48) and Irene Fischer (7th, 2:43:21) were within three minutes of each other, while the back half of the F60-64 field stretched out considerably. Anita Banks closed the group in 4:00:26 — a genuine achievement in its own right on a humid, blustery Huntsville morning. Twelve women in their sixties showed up and got it done; Johnston just happened to do it faster than anyone in the women's field could have expected.