KIMbia's Matt Tegenkamp en route to third place in the Fifth Avenue Mile. © Victah Sailer
A world-class road mile and the national marathon championships highlighted weekend road action in the U.S.
On Saturday, Canadian Olympian Kevin Sullivan and American Sara Hall won their divisions at the Fifth Avenue Mile, which runs point to point down 20 blocks of one of New York City’s busiest streets. With 200 meters to go in the men’s race, KIMbia’s Matt Tegenkamp had the slightest of leads, but wasn’t able to get away from Sullivan and Commonwealth 1500m champion Nick Willis, of New Zealand. Sullivan had an extra gear in the closing meters, and prevailed in 3:54.1 minutes. Willis nipped Tegenkamp, 3:54.7 to 3:54.8.
Like Tegenkamp, Hall tried to win from 200 meters out; in her case, she succeeded. She surprised New Zealand’s Kim Smith with a move on the right, and Smith couldn’t respond quickly enough. Hall won in 4:28.0, with Smith three-tenths of a second back. Erin Donahue passed American Olympian Carrie Tollefson in the last stretch to take third in 4:31.7.
Hussein, Runyan Win National Marathon Championships
The Twin Cities Marathon, held in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, again hosted the national marathon championships. As he did last year, Mbarak Hussein—brother of marathon great Ibrahim Hussein, and a former Kenyan turned American—won not only the masters race, but the overall title. At age 41, Hussein ran 2:13:52 hours to win by 17 seconds over his occasional training partner, Simon Sawe. Former national marathon champion Ryan Shay was third in 2:14:58.
Two-time Olympian Marla Runyan continued her successful return from maternity leave with a 2:32:17 victory, well ahead of Mary Akor (2:33:50) and Zolia Gomez (2:35:26). Runyan gave birth 13 months ago, and struggled to return to form afterward because of hip and back problems. As of January 1, she was unable to run four miles. At Twin Cities, however, she was in control throughout, and won her second national title in less than a month, the other being the 20 kilometer title that she won on, appropriately enough, Labor Day.
