This morning, with some fairly ominous-looking clouds assembled overhead, Rock/Creek’s Chattanooga Mountains Stage Race began with an 18-mile loop around TVA’s Raccoon Mountain trail system. Following up his tremendous winning time at the Rock/Creek Scenic City 1/2 marathon, Daniel Mueller established himself as the man to beat for the remainder of the weekend with a very strong win.
Part of the Rock/Creek Trail Series, the Chattanooga Mountains Stage Race features three days of trail running on three of the mountains surrounding Chattanooga: Raccoon Mountain, Lookout Mountain and Signal Mountain.
Here are the top finishers for stage 1; to view the final results including all finishers, click here. The overall race winner will be determined at the conclusion of Stage 3!
Men’s overall:
- Daniel Mueller, age 25, 1:53:37
- Brandon Mader, age 26, 1:58:47
- David Workman, age 40, 2:03:39
Women’s overall:
- Annette Bednosky, age 44, 2:30:31
- Natalie Sims, age 37, 2:33:09
- Leslie Becht, age 27, 2:42:45
Pre-race favorite Aaron Saft, overall winner of the 2011 Scenic City Trail Marathon and Rock/Creek River Gorge trail race, was running in 2nd place at the 3/4 mark in this one, but badly twisted an ankle on the homestretch and ended up with a DNF. Rock/Creek race team member Lance Steele was another notable DNF, twisting his own ankle toward the beginning of the race.
Rock/Creek racers Daniel Hamilton and Josh Hite finished 4th and 6th, respectively; familiar faces Feb Boswell (3rd place in our Scenic City Trail Marathon) and Theodore Towse (2nd in the 1/2 Marathon) placed 5th and 10th. Theresa Saupe, who finished second in last month’s 1/2 Marathon as well, finished 4th Female.
CLICK HERE for official race results!
Race photos will be uploaded throughout the remainder of the day, as well as the remainder of the weekend as the stages unfold. Several by are now available at the Rock/Creek flickr page.
Special thanks to our sponsors for making this race possible: SmartWool, Salomon, Marmot, Toyota, Patagonia, Montrail, Hammer Nutrition, and Greenlife Grocery and LifeKraze. Special recognition is definitely due, as well, to Archer Physical Therapy, who were more than busy tending to wounded runners this morning!
Our post-race event is at The Crash Pad at 6PM this evening, so definitely come hang out with us and recap the day’s race, but make sure you get some rest… we’re going to pick up right where we left off tomorrow morning, with 20 miles of technical trail running on Lookout Mountain for Stage 2.