HAGERSTOWN, Md. – The second annual Hub City Half Marathon drew 252 finishers on Sunday morning.
For the second straight year, Jonah Smith led every step. The 28-year-old from Smithsburg repeated as the men’s champion in 1:14:35.4, averaging 5:42 per mile on the hilly 13.1-mile course. His time was nearly three minutes faster than last year’s winning mark.
“I’m really happy with that,” Smith said. “My goal today was just to win and do a lot better on my time from last year.”
Joshua Reddoch, 27, of Greencastle, finished a distant second in 1:23:21.1, while Smithsburg’s Jonathan Kisas, 40, was third in 1:23:32.2.
“It would have helped to have some (competition), but I just tried to lock in, conserve myself a little on the hills and really use the downhills,” Smith said. “It worked.”
Smith, a social studies teacher at Hancock Middle School, credited his performance to his consistent winter training.
“I’ve just been putting in the miles, hitting 50s every week and balancing that with work,” he said.
The race started and ended at Meritus Park, home of the Hagerstown Flying Boxcars. The course wound through Rose Hill Cemetery, Marty Snook Park and Hagerstown City Park before runners covered the final 500 feet inside the stadium along the outfield warning track.
“It’s my favorite finish. I love it,” Smith said. “Hearing everybody at the end, it’s really cool.”
The women’s champion was Rachel Stone, 31, of Chambersburg, in 1:29:55.2. It was the 10th half marathon of her career — and her first victory. Based on last year’s results, she figured she’d be a contender.
“But you never know who’s going to show up,” Stone said.
Allie Isaacs, 31, of Hagerstown, was the women’s runner-up in 1:31:37.2, while Katie Catalano, 20, of Quakertown, Pennsylvania, took third in 1:38:09.9.
“Allie was pushing me for quite a while,” Stone said. “I kept hearing people say, ‘She’s 10 seconds behind you.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m just trying to run my race,’ and I just focused on that.”
Just past the 8-mile mark, Stone got a boost from another runner in the field — her husband, Jeffrey.
“I was hitting some rough spots during the race, and he came up, and we finished it out together,” she said.
“It was a tough course, but finishing on the baseball field was really cool,” she added. “I’d actually never been to the stadium before, so that was a cool experience. … This was a great race. I really enjoyed it. I definitely will come back.”
Race director Gwenn Leatherman also was pleased with how the event turned out.
“All of the community support has been wonderful, even more than last year,” Leatherman said. “Registration was about the same as last year, which we’re so happy about. It was a rough winter, a long winter. Lots of people couldn’t get outside and train. And to run a half marathon, you really need to train.”
Leatherman envisions big things for the race.
“Every year, keep growing,” she said. “To make it more of a festival would be wonderful.”
