John "Spider" Sillery hoped to knock a minute or two off his winning time from the 2011 Scenic City Half Marathon in the 2012 running of the race Saturday morning.
Instead, two young recent collegians knocked him off.
Lee University graduate Caleb Morgan, 24, won the 13.1-mile race from Finley Stadium in 1 hour, 15 minutes, 19 seconds. Sewanee assistant coach and former Tigers runner Chris Hague, 23, was second in 1:16:02.
They were old guys compared to the female winner -- 18-year-old Rebecca Greenwall, a former Baylor School runner from Bogart, Ga., who with her twin Rachel transferred to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this semester from Georgia Southern.
Rachel didn't run Saturday because of a slight groin strain, but Rebecca completed the longest race of her life in 1:25:03, edging 24-year-old women's runner-up Jill Skinner of Atlanta by 38 seconds. Greenwall was ninth overall out of 590 finishers.
Sillery, 40, was third overall and the masters winner in 1:16:30, six seconds better than his official pace-setting time last year.
"I thought I was going to run 1:14 or 1:15 today, but it was just a slow day," Sillery said. "The wind was pretty tough. But those guys had youth on their side, and they ran well."
Morgan, a Walker Valley High School graduate now teaching at Arts & Sciences, took the lead about three miles into this second competitive half marathon and maintained a comfortable margin over Hague. Morgan wanted to be a little faster but didn't run in the past week because of a bout with bronchitis.
"I didn't even know if I was going to run today, but since I already registered I decided to come on out," he said.
He's been training for the Nashville half marathon in April, hoping to win it after finishing fifth there in his first race at that distance last year. He plans to try a big-city marathon next year.
Hague is pushing for the Rock 'N' Roll Marathon in Washington, D.C., on March 17. That will be his first marathon. Saturday was his "third or fourth" half as an open runner, and it was his best time yet.
"Caleb definitely went out faster. I went out at a consistent pace, just trying to stay in range," Hague said. "I closed the gap some late. If we had another two or three miles I might've caught him. But I was really more worried about Spider. He was on my tail for a while."
Greenwall's strategy was simple enough.
"I typically run the 800 and the mile, so this was a big difference," she said. "I think I did OK, but I don't know what to compare it to. I just tried to find a couple of girls running up front and run with them, and if I had anything left I'd try to pull away.
"I feel great, but I'm so glad it's over."
Sergio Bianchini was 79th overall in 1:40:41 on his 71st birthday.
Jason Altman of Knoxville won the accompanying 5k in 16:37, and Chattanoogan Leah Golden was the female winner and 10th overall in 22:40. That race had 339 finishers.