Rocket City 10K — M40-44: Marin Runs Away From the Field in the Cold

• Kristopher Marin (43, Centerville OH) won the M40-44 group in 38:59 at a 6:16/mi clip — a 1:15 margin over runner-up Kendall Dock.
• The top five finished within 3:26 of each other, with Jermaine Wade (5th, 42:25) and Theo Goins (6th, 43:02) rounding out a competitive front pack before a notable gap back to 7th.
• Positions 13–15 finished within 13 seconds — Jose Martinez (57:06), Drew Callner (57:14), and Keith Borland (57:19) were locked in a tight battle all the way to the line.
• 28 men finished in M40-44, spanning from Marin's 38:59 down to times well past the hour mark, with the field spread across a wide range of effort on a sharp 29°F morning.

Twenty-nine degrees, a 16 mph wind, and clear Huntsville skies set the stage for a brisk December race — and Kristopher Marin from Centerville, Ohio made it look comfortable. Running 6:16 per mile, he crossed in 38:59 to take the M40-44 win by 1 minute and 15 seconds. That's a decisive gap at this distance, and it left little doubt at the front.

Behind Marin, Kendall Dock (41, New Market AL) held second in 40:14, with Huntsville's own Tomasz Dering (44) claiming the final podium spot in 41:46. Lee Luna and Jermaine Wade followed in 42:08 and 42:25 respectively, making the stretch from 2nd through 5th a genuine race within the race — 2:11 separating Dock from Wade. Theo Goins (40, Madison AL) closed out the top six in 43:02, the only 40-year-old in that lead group.

Then the field opened up. A gap of more than four minutes separated Goins from the anonymous 7th-place finisher (47:25), and the mid-pack settled into the 51–59 minute range, with ten men clustered there. The most entertaining battle in that stretch came near the back of the listed finishers: Martinez, Callner, and Borland separated by just 13 seconds across positions 13 through 15 — a fight that likely felt very real in that cold wind off the Tennessee Valley.