As he does every Labor Day, Rodney Stoker arrived early Monday morning at Chattanooga State to place cones along Amnicola Highway for the 5K for FCA. Later, as always, he helped collect them.
In between, the 34-year-old Bryan College coach won the race. And the runner-up was the women’s winner, Lanni Marchant.
The one-two finish for the overall victors may have been a first in an area race, at least one of significant size.
The 5K for FCA had a record pre-registration of 330, according to area Fellowship of Christian Athletes director Jay Fowler. Last year’s race raised nearly $6,000 for area FCA programs, and Fowler said “we’re hoping for even more this year.”
Stoker, a 2000 University of Tennessee at Chattanooga graduate better known in recent years for building a nationally relevant NAIA running program at Bryan College, won in 15 minutes, 57 seconds. Marchant, a 2007 UTC alumna, finished in 16:45 – a personal best by 14 seconds.
“I don’t remember the last time I ran the FCA road race,” said Stoker, who always helps in the course setup because he’s been a part-time employee of primary race sponsor Front Runner since 1998.
“The bad thing about Rodney winning is that he’s probably not even in shape,” said Joe Sneed, the masters winner with a fourth-place finish.
“I’m getting there,” Stoker said. “My main focus has been my Bryan runners, but I started doing some training this summer. I ran the Missionary Ridge race [in early August].
“If my team had showed up, I’d probably been eighth or ninth, but we had classes today.”
Stoker said he hadn’t been “competitive” in “four or five years,” not having trained hard in that time, but he felt good about his time on a cool Monday morning.
“I kept it pretty even. All three miles were pretty even, which is a good sign,” he said.
A group of high school runners went out fast, but Stoker had passed most of them soon after the first mile. Marchant got caught in a pack of high school boys, she said, but gave one a signal and was given room to go through.
“I felt kind of boxed in and thought the pace was getting slow, and I felt pretty good,” she said.
The native of Ontario, Canada, was the fastest female in several area races this summer while working at a local law firm – including the 4.8-mile Missionary Ridge race, a trail run and a sprint triathlon in a span of eight days – but she is back in Michigan for her fourth year of law school. She returned to Chattanooga this past weekend to accompany a group to Johnson City for the wedding of former teammate Mallory Williams and fellow UTC graduate Robert Hatcher and decided to hang around for the Labor Day race.
She may return for the StumpJump 11-mile race in early October and plans to run with ex-teammates in the Ragner Relay from Chattanooga to Nashville in early November. She hopes to return permanently to the area after finishing law school and passing the Tennessee bar exam.
“My goal always was to end up in Tennessee,” she said. “Chattanooga’s got its hold on me, I guess.”