Rocket City 5K: Kathy Elliott dominates the F65-69 field in bitter cold

• Elliott wins by 2:43 — her 35:19 finish (11:22/mi) was the clear class of the F65-69 group on a 29°F morning with a biting 16 mph wind.
• Tight battle for 3rd — Andrea Cochran (43:54) and Vicki Sue Merry (44:41) were separated by just 47 seconds across 3.1 miles.
• Barbara Leiser and Jamie Sizemore nearly inseparable — 7th and 8th place were decided by just 18 seconds, 52:37 to 52:55.
• All 12 finishers completed the course — the back of the field showed real grit, with Tammy Landry (58:21) and Ann Marie Bond (58:42) finishing just 21 seconds apart in those frigid conditions.

Kathy Elliott of Madison, AL made it look authoritative. Her 35:19 — an 11:22/mi pace — was nearly three minutes clear of runner-up Julie Zingarelli (38:02, 12:15/mi), a margin that speaks for itself when the thermometer reads 29°F and a 16 mph wind is working against every stride. At 69, Elliott was the oldest finisher in the group and the fastest. That's the headline.

Zingarelli, running on her home turf in Huntsville, held a comfortable cushion over the rest of the field. Behind her, the race for the podium was genuinely competitive — Andrea Cochran and Vicki Sue Merry ran nearly in lockstep through the second half, with Cochran's 43:54 edging Merry's 44:41 by 47 seconds for the bronze. Marsha Kennedy (47:48) and Lee Collins (49:28) rounded out the top six, both navigating the cold at a steady 15-to-16-minute-mile clip.

Further back, the 7th-through-8th battle between Barbara Leiser (Manchester Center, VT — perhaps no stranger to cold-weather racing) and Jamie Sizemore was the tightest of the day, just 18 seconds separating them at the line. And at the very back, Ann Marie Bond closed out the F65-69 field in 58:42 — a mere 21 seconds behind Tammy Landry — making it a fittingly competitive finish to a tough morning for all 12 women who showed up and got it done.