Men's Race: Fajardo Strnad Holds Off a Fast-Closing Graves in 29°F Huntsville Thriller

• Roberto Fajardo Strnad won the men's race in 1:12:57 (5:34/mi), holding off Dalton Graves by just 10 seconds.
• Matt McMillian, 40, was the men's mover of the day — sitting 7th at 6.8 miles, he surged to 5th at the line in 1:17:39.
• Michael Niederhausen (14th, 1:22:44) knocked more than 3 minutes off his 2024 finish of 1:25:47 at this same race.
• Teenagers Roman Hanson (17, 10th, 1:21:29) and John Litavec (16, 12th, 1:21:56) both cracked 1:22 in a men's field of 639.

Roberto Fajardo Strnad of Ooltewah, TN, crossed the line first in 1:12:57, averaging 5:34 per mile through a biting 29°F morning with 16 mph winds cutting across Huntsville. Dalton Graves of Mooresville, NC, pushed all the way to the finish — his 5:35/mi average tells you just how close this was — but Fajardo Strnad's lead held, and the 10-second gap at the tape was the margin that mattered. Notably, both men posted among the fastest splits in the entire field on the back half of the course (6.8 miles to the finish): Fajardo Strnad's was second-fastest, Graves's third. The race's second half was where the real racing happened.

Mark Porter, the local Huntsville entry, rounded out the podium in 1:14:51 (5:43/mi), finishing 1:54 behind the winner. Ian Hobbs was close behind in 4th at 1:15:38, with the 6.8M-to-finish segment telling an interesting story: Hobbs actually posted the 4th-fastest split on that stretch — faster than Porter's 5th — but Porter had built enough of a cushion in the first half to hold the position.

The race's best storyline beyond the top two may belong to Matt McMillian. The 40-year-old from Owens Cross Roads, AL, was running in 7th place at 6.8 miles, then reeled in two men on the back half to finish 5th in 1:17:39 — the 6th-fastest closing split among the men. Rand Cochrane (6th, 1:17:51) and Andrew Heiser (7th, 1:18:11) completed a top seven that was separated by just over five minutes.

Further back, Michael Niederhausen's return to this race deserves a mention: the 49-year-old from Fayetteville, GA, finished 14th in 1:22:44, a jump of 3:03 over his 10th-place finish here in 2024. And the teenagers were a genuine presence — Roman Hanson (17) and John Litavec (16), both from Madison, AL, finished 10th and 12th respectively, each well under 1:22 in a 639-man field on a cold December morning.