Retro Run 5K Results: Christopher Taylor Wins by 1.6 Seconds

Christopher Taylor, a 15-year-old from Morriston who runs cross country for Vanguard High School, won the 5th Annual Retro Run 5K in 18:48.9 on Saturday, August 22, 2026, holding off Devan Stancil of Inverness by 1.6 seconds on the streets of downtown Ocala. Lauren Godwin of Ocala was the first woman across the line in 20:00.1, fourth overall. A field of 180 finishers completed the 7:00 p.m. neon-and-spandex 5K, up from 146 a year ago.

Retro Run 5K 2026: Top 10 Finishers

Chip times as posted by Radical Runs. Complete results for all 180 finishers are on RunSignUp.

Christopher Taylor Raced Twice in 24 Hours

Taylor is one of the fastest young runners in Marion County, and Saturday night was the back half of a hard weekend. On Friday evening he was in Jacksonville with the Vanguard cross country team for the Cecil Field Summer Classic, the Bolles-hosted season opener that draws elite programs from across Florida. Less than 24 hours later he was on the start line in downtown Ocala.

That double explains the way the race unfolded. Rather than pushing from the gun, Taylor sat on the pace and let the 5K come to him, running an even 6:04 per mile and taking the lead late enough that the margin over Stancil came down to a second and a half. It was a controlled run rather than a full effort — which is what you want in late August, when the cross country season is just getting started and the races that count are still two months out.

Taylor's win also extends a pattern at this event. High schoolers have now taken the overall title in back-to-back years: Lucas Morrow, 15, and Sydney Farris, 13, swept the 2025 Retro Run, and the local youth pipeline behind them keeps producing — see the Marion County Athletic Conference cross country championships and Collin Moore's 2:43 marathon debut for the longer arc of that story.

A College Coach Won the Women's Race — and Brought Her Team

The first woman across the line was Lauren Godwin, 33, of Ocala, who ran 20:00.1 for fourth overall. Godwin is the head women's cross country coach at the College of Central Florida, where she started the program in 2022 and has coached the Patriots ever since.

She was not there alone. A number of her CF runners used the Retro Run as an early-season time trial, and the results show it: a cluster of college-age women finished inside the top 25, including 18-year-olds from Haines City, Port Saint Lucie and Callahan, a 23-year-old from Gainesville, and runners from Spring Hill and Lecanto, all between 22:03 and 24:06. For a two-year college assembling a roster from around the state, a chip-timed Saturday-night 5K in the team's home city is a cheap and honest way to see where everyone is in August.

Magda Barcia, 38, of Ocala was the second woman in 21:21.2, tenth overall.

Masters and Veteran Division Winners

The depth of this field was not just at the front. Twenty finishers were 60 or older, and the oldest was 79.



The line worth pausing on is Cida Wright. At 65, the Ocala runner was the fastest woman over 40 in the entire field, going 27:43 and finishing 15th among 107 women. And ten-year-old E. Self of Ocala ran 22:45 — 16th overall, ahead of most of the adults in the race.

Who Showed Up

Retro Run is a local race that pulls from well outside the county line. Of the 180 finishers, 94 listed Ocala as their hometown, followed by Dunnellon (14), Citra (8) and Belleview (7). The rest came in from Gainesville, The Villages, Inverness, Hernando and as far as California. Ages ran from 4 to 79, and 18 finishers were under 18.

The women's field outnumbered the men's, 107 to 73 — a split that has become normal at costume-themed evening 5Ks and one of the reasons this race has grown.

Run Ocala Race Series Standings

The Retro Run is the fifth of seven races in the 2026 Run Ocala Race Series, which scores runners across the calendar and awards series titles at the end of the year. The 2026 slate:

- Valentine's Day 5K — February 14
- Luck of the Leprechaun 5K — March 14
- Mother's Day 5K Run/Walk — May 9
- Iggy's "4 on the Fourth" Freedom Run — July 4
- Retro Run 5K — August 22
- Labor Day 5K — September 7
- Ocala Reindeer Run — December 12

Saturday's win moved Christopher Taylor to the top of both the men's and the overall series standings. Magda Barcia leads the women's standings. With the Labor Day 5K on September 7 and the Reindeer Run in December still to come, there is room for the order to change — series points reward showing up as much as running fast, so a runner who races every remaining event can still climb.

About the Retro Run

The Retro Run 5K is a five-year-old event created and directed by Darrin DeTorres through Radical Runs, the Ocala-based race timing and event management company that handles RFID chip timing for races across Central Florida. It runs as part of the Run Ocala Race Series, starts at 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday in August, and asks runners to dress the part — the start line is a wall of neon tanks, headbands, leg warmers and windbreakers.

DeTorres and his partner Maria Lorito put on multiple events across the year under the Run Ocala banner, from spring 5Ks to holiday races to free youth events.

What's Next: A Free Kids Mile on August 29

The next race on the calendar is a free one, and it is this Saturday. The Ocala Kids Run — a free one-mile fun run for young runners, sponsored by the Ocala Distance Project — steps off at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 29, 2026 from the Baseline Road Trailhead on the Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway, 4255 SE 58th Avenue in southeast Ocala. The course is flat paved multi-use trail and parking at the trailhead is free. Registration is through RunSignUp.

For the full picture of where and when to run in Marion County, see our Ocala running guide.

Disclosure: Only In Ocala is published by Darrin DeTorres, who directs the Retro Run 5K and the Run Ocala Race Series. All times, places and finisher counts in this report come from the official chip-timed results posted by Radical Runs on RunSignUp.