Rocket City Half Marathon M70-74: Sundey Dominates in the Cold

• Ben Sundey (1st, 2:06:57) ran a 9:41/mi pace to win the M70-74 group by 13 minutes and 29 seconds over Thomas Kuhn.
• Thomas Kuhn (2nd, 2:20:26) finished 9 minutes ahead of Henry Thomson (3rd, 2:29:27), with Ekkehard Bonatz (4th, 2:31:45) and Rick Stockton (5th, 2:33:34) bunched within four minutes of Thomson.
• A clear split in the field: the top six finished between 2:06:57 and 2:34:21, while Ronald Reid (7th, 3:32:21), John Wagoner (8th, 3:33:22), and Clifton Cartwright (9th, 3:52:34) crossed more than an hour later.
• Stockton made up ground late: he moved from 566th to 532nd among the men on the 6.8M-to-finish stretch, posting a faster second half than Bonatz, who slipped from 515th to 524th over that same segment.

Nine men in the M70-74 group took on a frigid Huntsville morning — 29°F, clear skies, and a 16 mph wind — and Ben Sundey made it look more manageable than most. The 71-year-old Huntsville local crossed in 2:06:57 at a 9:41/mi clip, a margin of nearly 13 and a half minutes over Thomas Kuhn (2nd, 2:20:26). That gap is the story of the race at the top: Sundey was simply in a different gear from the opening miles and never let anyone get close.

Kuhn, 73, making the trip from Marana, Arizona, held second comfortably and gained ground on the men's field over the back half, moving from 465th to 419th among the men on the 6.8-mile-to-finish segment. Behind him, Henry Thomson (3rd, 2:29:27), Ekkehard Bonatz (4th, 2:31:45), Rick Stockton (5th, 2:33:34), and David Malick (6th, 2:34:21) ran a tight cluster — just under eight minutes separating third from sixth. The most notable move in that pack came from Stockton, who reeled in Bonatz over the final stretch by running a stronger second half, climbing from 566th to 532nd among the men while Bonatz drifted back from 515th to 524th.

The back of the field told a different story entirely. Ronald Reid (7th, 3:32:21) and John Wagoner (8th, 3:33:22) finished within a minute of each other at 16:12 and 16:17 per mile respectively, with Clifton Cartwright (9th, 3:52:34) completing the group at 17:44/mi. All three deserve credit for finishing 13.1 miles in biting cold — and they did it on their own terms.