Marchette, Dormin win XTERRA Thill in the Hills Trail Marathon

Teale Marchette of Dahlonega, Ga., and Marie Domin of Mount Pleasant, S.C. won the XTERRA Thrill in the Hills trail marathon in Winder, Georgia on Saturday.

Marchette completed the course in 3:05:43. He ran alone in front of the pack for the entire second loop. Runner-up Christian Powell of Austin, Texas, came in at 3:19:16.

"This was actually my first marathon on a trail, so I wasn't expecting to win," said Marchette, 23. "I had a couple of buddies who did the half-marathon so I ran with them. When they finished, I kept going by myself and never really saw anybody else."

Domin was the first female finisher for the full-marathon course with a time of 3:39:26.  Both Marchette and Domin earned comp entries into the XTERRA Oak Mountain Trail Marathon scheduled for May 21 in Pelham, Alabama.

There was also a half-marathon trail race and the two events drew a capacity field of 500 runners to Fort Yargo State Park.

Elena Linn won the women's 21k and based on her success rate, she might want to think about entering more trail races.

Linn, who is from Marietta, Ga., won the Thrill in the Hills half-marathon for the third consecutive year on Saturday.

"I love this race - one of my friends did it with me that first year and I've been coming back ever since," said Linn, 25. "But other than this one, that's about it."

The course itself was one big challenging loop that traversed up and down the hills at Fort Yargo State Park (the full-marathon runners did two laps).

Linn, a former all-conference track runner at Georgia Tech, said she took the lead in the women's field early in the course and maintained the lead throughout.

"This course is always great," she said. "All the ups and downs are really challenging, and there was this one section with some really tall grass that made it tough."

David Bell of Atlanta won the men's half-marathon for the second consecutive year with a time of 1:17:06, beating second-place Chris Wiley by 26 seconds.

The event was the fifth of six races in the 2011 XTERRA Georgia Trail Run Series. The top runners in each respective age group earned points toward the cumulative season standings. The final event in the series will be the XTERRA Deep South Trail Run in June.

At the end of the season, each age-group champion will receive a free entry to the XTERRA Trail Run National Championship at Ogden, Utah, on Sept. 25.

For complete results from the Thrill in the Hills race, and more information on the XTERRA Georgia Series, please visit www.dirtyspokes.com or www.xterratrailrun.com.

© 2013 TEAM Unlimited LLC