“V” stood for “victory” Saturday in the 40th running of the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon.
Adam Veron of Hixson won the 26.2-mile race in 2 hours, 45 minutes, 58 seconds (gun time), and Jenny Vance of Knoxville was the women’s winner and 11th overall in 3:08:39.
Former winners Jason Altman of Knoxville and Kaye Starosciak of Canton, Georgia, were the gender runners-up and masters winners in 2:48:54 and 3:11:28 (14th overall). John Kruckeberg of Thomson, Georgia, was third overall in 2:49:02, and Chad Dean (2:50:27), Ryan McGinnis (2:51:30), Matt Celone (2:51:51) and Lucas Cotter (2:54:41) also broke the 3-hour mark.
Tricia Beaty (3:22:04) and Belinda Bernard (3:31:04) were the third and fourth female finishers. Bernard and Texan Jeffrey Petersen were the grand masters winners, and Alabama residents Paul Baswell and Betty Holder took senior grand masters honors.
Christian Thompson led the 697 half marathon finishers with a time of 1:08:06, five minutes ahead of masters winner Rodney Stoker (1:13:18), who had four minutes on third-place Mitchell Hollis (1:17:16). Zach Buffington was fourth (1:17:46) and Doug Daniel was fifth (1:22:40).