So intriguing was the possibility of a fight to the finish for Patrick Hall and Tim Ensign in the Chickamauga Chase 15k that they got bib numbers 1 and 2 for Saturday morning’s race in the battlefield park.

“All that did was motivate Geno,” said Ensign, the 2005 and ’06 winner who settled for masters honors for the third year in a row.

“Yeah, they had 1 and 2 on and I was 160. I was thinking, ‘What about Geno?’” said Geno Phillips, who won in 51 minutes, 20 seconds with Hall finishing second in 52:21 and Ensign third in 52:40.

Joe Sneed and Tom Sell from the 40-44 age group were fourth and fifth in 54:25 and 57:16.

Former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga All-American Kathleen Turchin was the first female finisher and 12th overall in 1:02:33 in what she said was her longest run since ending her college career a year ago.

“Now I’m just running for fun,” said Turchin, who has become a permanent Chattanooga resident. “I had kind of an isolated race today. I was running by myself for like seven and a half miles.”

Hall, now 24, was second to Ensign, 46, in the ’05 Chickamauga Chase.

Phillips, 37, was second to a University of Georgia instructor in 2004 and had not run the 9.3-mile race since. Since moving to Chattanooga from Mississippi in 2002, the Brown Middle School teacher had won almost every other major area race of half-marathon distance and less, so this one was particularly sweet to him.

At one point he cut down on his running to train for cycling and triathlons but decided “about a year ago,” he said, to get back to his specialty.

“Just running. No biking, no swimming, no lifting,” Phillips said. “It’s taken me this long to get back where I want to be.”

He felt Hall and Ensign may have pushed the pace too much early in Saturday’s race. He overtook then-leader Hall “right at the six-mile mark,” he said.

“Then I turned on a 5:20 mile, and that was it.”

Hall agreed.

“Geno cooked it. He caught me at 10k and never looked back,” the former Chattanooga Christian School and Covenant College standout said. “I tried to push it in the second and third mile to get away from everybody, but he just closed beautifully.”

Current Covenant junior Enoch Elwell from Woodstown, N.J., won the accompanying 5k in 16:53, and 14-year-old Caitlin Duggan was the female winner in 21:49.

“We usually run 8ks in competition, but this offseason I’ve been doing a lot of 5ks,” Elwell said, suggesting a desire to build his speed. “I did one in 16:40. This was just a fun race today, but it’s exciting to win.”

There were 736 entries for the two races on a beautiful morning that featured a young deer romping through the start-finish area, and 292 runners finished the 15k. Jack McFarland, 74, from Decatur, Ga., was one of those, continuing his remarkable streak by finishing a Chickamauga Chase race all 41 years.

Kelly Bullock was the 15k female masters winner, and William Warner and Susan Gallo were the grand masters victors.