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Palace Saloon 5K winners, 2007 - 2024
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 | 2007 Men's Champion, J. P. Cook
16:12
J. P. Cook was the first of 537 finishers at Gulf Winds Track Club's 2007 Palace Saloon 5K. One of many Florida State University trackmen to race the Palace over the years, Cook cruised to a 16:12 win on Jackson Bluff Road. Tripp Southerland was a distant second in 16:39. |
 | 2007 Women's Champion, Breeda Dennehy-Willis
17:14
2007 was the last year that Breeda Dennehy-Willis would run the Palace Saloon 5K. She went out a winner, running 17:14 and collecting her third Palace title. It wasn't the Irish Olympian's best time on the course; that would be the 16:31 she ran in 2005. Lara Shaw was second in 17:55, and a Tallahassee schoolteacher named Lisa Johnson was third in 19:06. |
2008 Men's Champion, Nick Sunseri
15:40
Nick Sunseri's final track season at Florida State University was still a year off in 2008 when he found time to race the 32nd annual Palace Saloon 5K. Sunseri outraced Chris Lake for the win that morning, 15:40 to 15:45. 782 runners crossed the finish line. The Palace was not only getting bigger; it was also getting faster. |  |
2008 Women's Champion, Lisa Johnson
18:46
Lisa Johnson and Lara Shaw were back at the Palace in 2008 after finishing behind Breeda Dennehy-Willis in the 2007 race. 2008 was a fight all the way to the finish line, with both Johnson and Shaw clocked in 18:46. But Johnson got their first and had her first Palace Saloon 5K win. |  |
 | 2009 Men's Champion, John Robida
16:21
Was 2009 the first time that the Palace Saloon 5K had over a thousand finishers? It was certainly the first time that many had been documented as crossing the finish line. John Robida was the fastest in that field of 1,022 runners, winning the 35th annual race in 16:21. Two weeks earlier, David Altmaier had finished ahead of him at the Springtime 10K, winning that race, but at the Palace Altmaier was runner-up in 16:28, just ahead of third-place runner Stephen Cox at 16:30. |
 | 2009 Women's Champion, Lisa Johnson
18:11
Coming off a win in the Springtime 10K, Lisa Johnson won her second straight Palace Saloon title, beating out runner-up Amy Hines 18:11 to 18:15. Johnson and Hines were eighteenth and nineteenth overall in the field of 1,022 finishers. |
 | 2010 Men's Champion, Chris Lake
15:45
A record field of 1,214 finishers arrived at the Palace in 2010. The first athlete there was Chris Lake, who won the 36th annual Palace Saloon 5K in 15:45, a comfortable 21 seconds ahead of runner-up Daniel Lee. A Florida State University student and an alumnus of the Chiles High cross-country team, it was Lake's first win at the Palace. There would be more. |
 | 2010 Women's Champion, Christina Woytalewicz
17:42
The evening before the 2010 Palace Saloon 5K, Christina Woytalewicz was on Florida State University's Mike Long Track, running a 10:29.20 in the women's 3,000-meter race at the Seminole Twilight Meet. That would have been a full weekend for most athletes. But Woytalewicz, a member of the FSU track team, got up the next morning and raced the Palace. She took the women's title, outrunning Amy Hines 17:42 to 17:45. Defending women's champ Lisa Johnson was the fourth female finisher, 29th overall in 18:32. |
2011 Men's Champion, Chris Lake
15:48
In 2011 the starting line of the 37th annual Palace Saloon 5K had to be moved to Tallahassee Community College because of an event at Messer Park. Before dawn on the morning of the race, there were intense thunder storms and a tornado watch in the Tallahassee area. But the weather cleared, and over a thousand athletes made it to the race. Defending champ Chris Lake was among them, and he successfully defended his 2010 title, running 15:48 and finishing nine seconds ahead of runner-up Marc Akbar. |  |
 | 2011 Women's Champion, Lindsay Zeiler
18:24
Lisa Johnson was at the Palace Saloon 5K in 2011, looking for a third women's title in the race. But Lindsay Zeiler was also there. A former Southeast Missouri Redhawk distance runner, Zeiler was the first Palace woman in 2011, running 18:24 on wet streets and placing 24th overall. Johnson was second in the women's standings, placing 29th overall in 18:43. |
2012 Men's Champion, Josh Myers
16:07
For the 38th annual Palace Saloon 5K the starting line returned to Messer Park and Dupree Street. The beautiful spring weather had returned as well. And Stephen Cox was back. Cox was leading with 800 meters to go, when the race crested the hill on Jackson Bluff Road. But on the downhill drive to the finish line, Josh Myers moved from third to first, passing Cox and winning the race in 16:07. Cox was runner-up in 16:09, followed by Peter Wood (16:15), Charlie Johnson (16:15), and Christian Minor (16:16). |  |
2012 Women's Champion, Lindsay Zeiler
17:20
Lindsay Zeiler successfully defended her 2011 title at the 2012 Palace Saloon 5K with a fast 17:20. Amy Hines kept it close for the first half of the race but fell behind after that, taking second in 17:41. 2008 and 2009 Palace winner Lisa Johnson was third on the women's side at 18:17. |  |
2013 Men's Champion, Stan Linton
15:46
Mike Burns took over race director duties for the Palace Saloon 5K in 2013. He immediately put his mark on the race, subtly improving the course by moving the starting line from Dupree Street onto Jackson Bluff Road. Instead of a counter-clockwise circuit of Messer Park, the race now started with a clockwise lap. But the race still finished on Jackson Bluff Road at the Palace Saloon, and the first one there was Stan Linton. A freshman at Florida State University, an alumnus of the Wakulla High cross-country, and a Navy ROTC midshipman, Linton led nearly the whole way, but not by much. Peter Wood and Will Stanford were right behind him the whole way, and less than three seconds separated the trio at the finish line. Linton was first in 15:46, Wood second in 15:49, and Stanford third also in 15:49. |  |
2013 Women's Champion, Sheryl Rosen
17:49
Sheryl Rosen had first run the Palace Saloon 5K in 2006, collecting quite a few top ten finishes. 2013 was the largest Palace yet, with 1,389 finishers. That was where Rosen nabbed her first Palace women's title, running the 39th annual race in 17:49. At 18:07, Dr. Katie Sherron was the women's runner-up. |  |
 | 2014 Men's Champion, Chris Lake
15:52
2014 was a landmark in Palace Saloon 5K history, the 40th annual race. It was also the year that two-time champion Chris Lake returned to the Palace following absences in 2012 and 2013. Lake shook off most of the competition by surging just after the mile mark, but Zach DeVeau stayed with him till the final downhill. There, Lake made a decisive move, racing to the Palace in a winning 15:49. It was Lake's third Palace title. DeVeau was runner-up in 16:12. |
2014 Women's Champion, Amy Hines
17:45
Amy Hines had been the women's runner-up at Palace in 2009, 2010, and 2012. 2014 was her year. Leading nearly from wire to wire, Hines ran 17:45 for the women's title. Dr. Katie Sherron edged Lisa Johnson for second in the women's standings, 18:42 to 18:47. |  |
 | 2015 Men's Champion, Tyler Udland
15:29
2015 was the third year in a row that there were over 1,300 finishers at the Palace Saloon 5K. It was also the third year in a row that the winning time was under 16:00. It was 15:29, and Tyler Udland ran it. The Palace is often a close race, resembling a track event more than a road run, but Udland, a graduate student in finance at Florida State, won by 50 seconds. Several runners stayed with him for the first half of the race, but Udland buried the field during the second half. There was quite a race for runner-up, with Stephen Robbins taking second in 16:19, three-time champion Chris Lake third in 16:22, and Nate Kaiser fourth in 16:24. |
2015 Women's Champion, Lauren Poulos
17:54
Lauren Poulos ran with the 2013 women's champion, Sheryl Rosen, for the first half of the 2015 Palace Saloon 5K. Then Poulos ran away from Rosen. A former Florida State University distance runner, Poulos won the women's title in 17:54, with Rosen second in 18:24. |  |
2016 Men's Champion, Nick Merrett
15:53
Leading the 2016 Palace Saloon 5K, Matt Mizereck took a group of six runners through the two-mile mark in 10:24. That's when Nick Merrett of New Zealand decided to make his move. A University of West Florida Argonaut cross-country runner, Merrett surged away from the field. University of North Florida alum Chris Haynes was narrowing the gap on the final downhill, but Merrett was across the finish line first in 15:53. Haynes took second in 15:56, with early leader Mizereck third in 16:15. |  |
2016 Women's Champion, Ani Veltcheva
18:13
You wouldn't have picked an eleven-year-old girl to take first in the women's division at the 2016 Palace Saloon 5K, but Ani Veltcheva was no ordinary eleven-year-old girl. At age nine, Veltcheva had set a single-age world record for the girls' 5K, running 18:47. Two years later she was even faster. Emma Reed led the women's field for the first two kilometers of the Palace, then Ani took over during the third kilometer. The last two kilometers and the race belonged to Ani, as she arrived at the Palace in a winning 18:13. Reed was second for the women in 18:25, and Adriana Piekarewicz was third in 18:54. |  |
 | 2017 Men's Champion, Stan Linton
15:16
After winning the 2013 Palace, Stan Linton had made both the track and cross-country teams at Florida State University as a walk-on. In 2017 he still had some NCAA eligibility remaining, but found a walk to run the 43rd annual Palace Saloon 5K. Linton took off from the very start of the race, fueled by visions of establishing a new Palace record. He didn't, but he did win the race in 15:16. Chris Haynes and Florida State graduate student Matt McCurdy spent the whole race watching Linton get farther ahead. Haynes ended up second in 15:43 and McCurdy third in 16:36. |
2017 Women's Champion, Ani Veltcheva
17:58
In 2017 Ani Veltcheva came back to the Palace from her hometown of Gainesville, Florida to defend her 2016 title. 2015 champ Lauren Poulos was also in the field, as was 2013 champ Sheryl Rosen, but Veltcheva grabbed the lead almost immediately. Late in the race, Adriana Piekarewicz narrowed the gap a bit, but Veltcheva was too far ahead to be caught. Veltcheva won her second-straight Palace Saloon 5K in 17:58, with Piekarewicz second in 18:15. Dr. Katie Sherron was third in 18:31, and Rosen fourth in 19:12. |  |
2018 Men's Champion, Justin Garrard
15:15
Chris Haynes had finished runner-up at the Palace Saloon 5K in both 2016 and 2017. By 2018 he was ready to go for the top spot, taking the lead 400 meters into the race. But Haynes couldn't get away from Justin Garrard. Garrard stuck to Haynes through most of the race, overtook right before the crest of Michelob Ridge, then cemented his win on the downhill dash to Budweiser Creek. Garrard's winning time of 15:15 was the fastest at the Palace since 1994, when Robin Rogers ran 14:56. Haynes took second in 15:21, while Andrew Smith was third in 15:52. |  |
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2018 Women's Champion, Ani Veltcheva
18:05
With middle school track, swimming, and competitions in math and science, Ani Veltcheva hadn't had much time for 5K road races. But Veltcheva made time for the 2018 Palace Saloon 5K. The two-time winner took the lead early, trailed by Ann Centner and Dr. Katie Sherron. Sherron broke away from Centner during the second half of the race to try to chase down Veltcheva, but the youngster's lead proved insurmountable. Veltcheva ran 18:05 to take first in the women's standings, her third straight Palace win. Other athletes have won the Palace three times, but not before they entered high school. Sherron was second in 18:17 and Centner third in 18:28. 2013 winner Sheryl Rosen went 18:45 for fourth, and 2015 winner Lauren Poulos took fifth in 19:30. |
2019 Men's Champion, David Barney
14:39
Stan Linton returned to the Palace in 2019, still dreaming of setting the race's record. Linton didn't run close to the record, but David Barney and Ricardo Estremera did. Leaving Linton behind during the second half, Barney and Estremera ran together all the way to the finish line. Both were clocked in 14:39, but Barney got the nod. Linton was third in 15:05. |  |
2019 Women's Champion, Ann Centner
17:38
2019 was Ann Centner's third Palace, but her first as a Tallahassee resident--she had just moved to town to pursue a Ph.D. at Florida State University. The change of address must have agreed with her, because Centner ran a personal best of 17:38, winning her first Palace Saloon 5K women's title. |  |
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2021 Men's Champion, Stan Linton
14:45
After finishing third behind David Barney in the 2019 Palace, Stan Linton had to wait longer than usual for a rematch. The 2020 race was canceled due to COVID-19. The continuing pandemic delayed the 2021 race to October. So it was 30 months before Linton got another crack at Barney. He made the most of it. Leading from wire to wire, Linton got his third Palace victory in 14:45, his first time breaking 15:00 in the race. Barney took second in 15:34.
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2021 Women's Champion, Katie Sherron
17:40
Dr. Katie Sherron hadn't missed the Palace Saloon 5K since 2012. She had always finished in the top ten of the women's standings, placing second three times--including a runner-up showing behind Sheryl Rosen in 2013. 2021 was Sherron's year, though, as she raced to the women's title in 17:40--her first time breaking 18:00 on the Palace course. Rosen took second in 19:44. |  |
2022 Men's Champion, Stan Linton
14:49
April 2022 saw the Palace Saloon 5K back in its usual month. Stan Linton was back, too, running 14:49 for his second sub-15:00 Palace and his fourth win. No challenge to Linton, Ryan Ziskinder and Vincent Fetchero took second and third in 16:00 and 16:06. |  |
2022 Women's Champion, Katie Sherron
17:39
Dr. Katie Sherron earned her first Palace Saloon 5K women's title in 2021. She was back in 2022 to grab her second, which she did with a 17:39, also her second time going under 18:00 in the race. It was also Sherron's tenth straight Palace, and her first as a master runner. Well behind the winner, Brittney Barnes edged Annabelle Wiktorski for the second women's spot, 20:42 to 20:45. |  |
2023 Men's Champion, Stan Linton
14:54
Still building his case to be named Mr. Palace Saloon 5K, Stan Linton won the race for the fifth time in 2023, running 14:54. Rick Miller was the only other athlete to win five Palaces. It was also Linton's third time breaking 15:00 at the Palace. Alberto Mena was second in 15:20 and Ryan Ziskinder third in 15:32. |  |
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2023 Women's Champion, Jennifer Lima
17:08
In April 2023, Jennifer Lima hadn't raced since November, when she ran in the NCAA-D1 Cross-Country Championships for Florida State. The FSU alum resumed racing by winning the women's title at the Springtime 10K. Her return to competition continued with a first-place effort in the women's division of the Palace Saloon 5K. Her 17:08 was the fastest women's time at the Palace since 2005, when Breeda Willis went 16:31 for the course record. Running the race for the eleventh time, Dr. Katie Sherron was second in the women's standings at 17:34, her fastest Palace yet. |
2024 Men's Champion, Ryan Ziskinder
15:27
After his third-place showing in the 2023 Palace, Ryan Ziskinder was back at Messer Field in 2024 to give the race another try. Leading wire-to-wire, Ziskinder paced himself like a metronome, winning the 5K in 15:27. Tre Pepper was second in Tre Pepper was second in 16:12 and Wakulla High harrier Henry Lewis took third in 16:38. |  |
2024 Women's Champion, Ann Centner
17:18
After winning the Palace Saloon 5K women's title in 2019, Ann Centner didn't come back to the race till 2024. Also returning to the women's field in 2024 were past champions Amy Hines, Dr. Katie Sherron, Stephanie Liles-Weyant, and Lisa Johnson. Centner, now Dr. Centner, ran away from them all, finishing as first woman in 17:18. Dr. Sherron, running her twelfth straight Palace, was second in 18:01. Hines was third in 18:11. |  |
Anyone desiring to establish a new race in Dothan, Alabama has a ready-made course--Westgate Park's Larry and Ronna Dykes Trail. When it comes to a 5K course, you could do worse. Certainly, it would be hard to do better. Many races have taken advantage of the trail, too many to list. One such was the race that the Junior League of the Wiregrass initiated on Saturday morning, 5 April 2025, the Run For The Wiregrass 5K. Dothan's Brittney Crain won the race by over 200 meters, running 21:06. Domanic Enriquez was the first male finisher, placing second overall in 22:06.
37th annual Memorial Day Gate-to-Gate 4.4-Mile Run. 7:30 AM CT. Unity Park, Chinquain Drive and Eglin Boulevard, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. USATF certified 4.4-mile course #
Monticello Kiwanis' 46th annual Melon Run 5K. 8:15 AM ET. First United Methodist Church Family Ministry Center, 325 West Walnut Street, Monticello, Florida 32344. 2023 
50th annual Billy Bowlegs 5K Night Race. 7:30 AM CT. Fort Walton Beach High School, 400 Hollywood Blvd, Fort Walton Beach, Florida 32547. 2023 
26th annual Celebrate Freedom 5K and one-mile fun run. 8:00 AM CT 5K / 9:15 AM CT one mile. Jay's Bray-Hendricks City Park, 5259 Booker Lane, Jay, Florida 32565. 2023 story. 2022 
Amelia Island Firecracker 5K. 8:00 AM ET. Omni Amelia Island Resort at Racquet Park, 102 Racquet Park Drive, Fernandina Beach, Florida 32034. Online registration at 
41st annual Bridge of Lions 5K. 7:30 AM ET. 
27th annual Gulf Winds Track Club Mile at the Breakfast On The Track. 7:45 AM ET. Maclay School track, 3737 North Meridian Road, Tallahassee, Florida 32312. 2024 
Hahira Honeybee Festival 5K. 8:00 AM ET. Hahira Community Center, 216 Randall Street, Hahira, Georgia 31632. 2023 
Gulf Winds Track Club's 46th annual Pine Run at Tall Timbers 20K. 7:30 AM ET. Tall Timbers Research Station, 13093 Henry Beadel Drive, Tallahassee, Florida 32312. 2024 
18th annual Rejoice Run 5K and Mom's Mile (formerly Joyce's Jog). 7:30 AM ET one mile / 8:00 AM ET 5K. Historic Donalsonville Fire Station, 220 South Woolfork Avenue, Donalsonville, Georgia 39845. 2024 
45th annual Boston Half-Marathon and 5K. 8:00 AM ET half marathon / 8:15 AM ET 5K. Commercial Bank, 124 West Jefferson Street, Boston, Georgia 31626. 2024 
13th annual BFD Catfish Crawl 5K and one-mile fun run. 8:00 AM CT. M and B Train Park, North Main Street and Railroad Avenue, Blountstown, Florida 32424. 2024 
Gulf Wind Track Club's 13th annual Tannenbaum Trail 6K Cross Country Run. 9:00 AM ET. 
37th annual Shamrock Scurry 5K and one-mile fun run. 8:00 AM ET one mile / 8:30AM ET 5K.