Stoker, Tate win Chase 15k
Former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga running teammates Rodney Stoker and Amanda (Lynch) Tate could have been the masters winners of the Chickamauga Chase 15k on Saturday.
Except they were the overall winners, each at least five years since earning that distinction before. In Stoker’s case, it was more like 15, but at 42 he is in his best running shape in years and has won other races recently.
The McCallie School staff member won the
50th running of the main spring race in the Chickamauga Battlefield in 51 minutes, 52 seconds
— three minutes faster than his fifth-place finish last year. Tate,
40, was 12th overall and the first female in 59:50, one spot and six seconds ahead of
Sara Gibson, 33.
Rachel Mason was 14th overall, 19 seconds behind Gibson.
“I didn’t win it until the last quarter mile. It was close,” said Tate, who couldn’t remember her last individual win.
“Maybe this race,” she said, referring to her victory in 59:52 in 2013. In her only other time in the Chickamauga Chase, she was second in 2006 to Kathleen Turchin’s course record.
“I’ve finished second a lot,” Tate said, “and I’ve won a lot of masters.”
Nicholas McCormick, 22, was second overall Saturday in 53:39, and Zack Jordan, 24, and Robby Jourdan, 30, were third and fourth in 54:45 and 55:19. Jeremy Miller, 41, was the masters winner and sixth overall in 56:32, three seconds behind Ken Curran. Emily Cooper was the female masters winner in 1:05:11. There were 308 15k finishers.
Jether English of Flintstone won the 8-mile trail race in 46:13, holding off Bob Adams by five seconds. Michael Conkel was third out of 149 finishers in 50:06. Kiersten Boyd was the female winner and 13th overall in 1:02:07, with Melissa Ledford the runner-up in 1:03:04 and Maria Hernandez the third woman in 1:06:57.
Joshua Stanley and Derek Gallardo led the 406 finishers in the 5k with times of 17:24 and 17:52, and 13-year-old Helen Webb was the first female and 11th overall in 20:56, one spot and 21 seconds in front of Laura Wagner.
English, 25, led the first mile and last mile in the RRCA state-championship trail race and was mostly second in between.
“I set my mind to winning, but I had doubts a few times,” he said. “Even when I thought I had pulled away enough near the end, (Adams) came at me again.”
As for Stoker, he was mildly concerned about a tight Achilles’ tendon but felt fine after a good night’s sleep and breezed to victory on the spectacular course in perfect running weather.
“What a day!” he exclaimed. “I felt good. Last year I kind of tanked it here, but I’m fitter now and I held it together better.”
Tate was “pleasantly surprised” at her success in a race she usually has had to miss because of her sons’ baseball games. She “didn’t run too well” in a race at Charleston, S.C., a couple of weeks earlier and has had little chance for speed work lately, she said.
The local Intersign plant had about 45 percent of its work force in the Chase events, including the scenic walk. Co-owners Hank McMahon (trail race) and Jim Roides (5k) were second and seventh, respectively, in their age groups, and Marian Roides was the 5k female senior grandmasters winner.
“We had 83 signed up, out of about 200 employees. Volkswagen had 103, but they have a lot more workers,” said Jim Roides, noting that Intersign’s total Saturday was the most in its “eight or nine years” of paying entry fees to various races, now about eight a year.
“We believe in fitness. We just want to see people be active,” Roides said.