John Sillery didn’t wake up as early as he would have liked on Saturday morning, but it was just in time to make the starting line of the CADAS 5K, which was held at the Tennessee RiverPark.
Sillery made his time and effort more than worthwhile as he won the annual 3.1-mile race with a time of 18 minutes and 12 seconds as he beat runner-up Jonathan O’Mary by almost four minutes.
O’Mary crossed the finish line in the grass beside the Hubert Fry Center in 21:53 while Cam Chapman posted a time of 21:58 to take third.
Sandra Rudel, a 29-year-old Human Resource employee at the Volkswagon plant, was the women’s overall winner as she finished sixth overall with a time of 23 minutes and 59 seconds.
Abby Martin was 10th overall as she was the second female in 24:43 while Jodi Davis was the third lady and 13th overall in 25:43.
Saturday’s race was a fund raiser for the popular facility in North Chattanooga, which treats folks for alcohol and other chemical addictions.
Sillery is a 43-year-old Emergency Room doctor in Scottsboro who lives in St. Elmo. He’s currently training for the Triathlon World Championship, which will be held in Chicago next Thursday.
Despite doing a tough 13-mile training run from his home up the side of Lookout Mountain on Friday, he was more than up for the challenge on Saturday as he broke from the start and was never challenged.
“I didn’t get a chance to warm up as I woke up late, but I just came out and tried to do my best,” he said while waiting for the second finisher.
“I knew that I needed to support this event and I saw Rebecca Stein’s facebook post reminding me that it was today, but I did a hard run yesterday and my legs were a little bit sore. I ran as hard as I could,” he added.
Rudel is currently training for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon where she hopes to improve on last year’s time of 4:13, which was her first 26.2-mile effort. She was pacing a friend on Saturday with the intention of running an eight-minute pace, but she left her friend behind and shattered her goal by averaging 7:44 per mile for the distance.
“It was exhausting, but what a beautiful place to run. This is my favorite place to run as it’s so scenic. I was hoping to average eight minutes as I was running with a friend, so I had a really good race today,” she explained.
Russ Rogers and Stein were the defending winners in this race. Rogers wasn’t present to defend his title, but Stein was as she finished fifth among the ladies with a time of 26:22, which was 17th overall.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)