John Gilpin
Emily BellJohn Gilpin remained king of the ridge Saturday morning.
The former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga runner won the Missionary Ridge Road Race for the second year in a row, and he did it in solitary fashion. Gilpin finished the down-and-back 4.7-mile course in 25 minutes, 41 seconds – a minute and a half ahead of second-place Jessie Martinez, a 16-year-old Murray County High School sophomore who also ran alone most of the race. His time was 27:13.
Former East Tennessee State runner Emily Bell of Signal Mountain was the women’s winner and seventh overall in 29:19, with former UTC Moc Sarah Woerner of Dunlap the female runner-up in 31:11, good for 13th overall.
Woerner, a 26-year-old health and physical education teacher at Tyner Academy who ran a 50-mile road race in Mississippi the previous week, led until the turnaround but wasn’t able to catch Bell, 34, after relinquishing the lead.
The winners each received $100 in prize money. The runners-up got $50.