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Jenny Simpson again punctuated a dominant track season with a win at the 5th Avenue Mile. Simpson’s 4:19.4 was her third win and second consecutive sub-4:20 at the race, following last year’s 4:19.3. Including Simpson’s victory last year, it was only the fourth time in the 34-year history of the event that the winner broke 4:20. As runner-up, Brenda Martinez, who closed fast to a 4:19.6, ran the ninth best time in the event’s history, slicing 4.6 seconds from her own winning time in 2012.

The race was a much tighter victory for Simpson than last year’s, which she won by more than four seconds. “Last year I don’t think I had a strategy to go out hard. I just kind of went by feel. I was kind of surprised how the race came to me. This year was different. I was ranked #1 in the world coming out of the track season and just ran a great 3k. My fourth race in four weeks, I said just run it as I’ve been running and go hard from the gun. With that plan in mind, I think it was actually a little harder. The pressure was there.”

The race was a clean sweep for New Balance, which sponsors Simpson, Martinez, and Ireland’s 22-year-old Ciara Mageean, who finished third in 4.21.2.

Early in the race Jordan Hasay, Mary Cain, and Treniere Moser from the Nike Oregon Project settled in behind Simpson as Martinez hung back. Hasay gamely gave chase before fading in the final kick, and the hard charging Martinez nearly caught Simpson at the line. Hasay, Moser, and Cain ended up 8th, 9th, and 10th with times ranging from 4:23.9 to 4:25.5. While Nike clearly dominates men’s middle distance, on the women’s side New Balance, for now, has gained the upper hand. Throw NOP’s Shannon Rowbury into the mix, along with NB’s Kim Conley, Abbey D’Agostino, and Emma Coburn, and these two groups are destined to clash well into the future.

Regardless of sponsor, that the United States is home to the best women’s miler (and 1500m runner) on the planet deserves a little shouting from the rooftops.

In the men’s race, a trifecta would have payed handsomely, as Jordan McNamara, Garrett Heath, and Irishman Paul Robinson stormed by favorites Matt Centrowitz, Augustine Choge, and Will Leer to win, place, and show. Robinson’s performance came out of the blue, as he was even less touted than the other Irishman (Ciaran O’Lionaird) in the race, though probably equally unexpected as countrywoman Mageean in the women’s run. It was a good day for Ireland: even Feidhlim Kelly of The Irish Examiner got into the mix, scorching the Media Race with a 4:27 victory.

Back to the pros: Leer and Lawi Lalang took to the front, but the two burnt fuel in a mid-race surge to claim the $1,000 bonus for being in the lead at the 800-meter mark. Leer got it in what would be a mid-race photo finish, if there were such a thing. The stipulation of the bonus held that the runner in the lead would still have to break four minutes, which Leer did by finishing in 3:55.9.

Remarkably, 15 of the 16 competitors ran faster than 3:58 and a mere two-tenths of a second separated McNamara’s winning time of 3:51.0 from fourth place finisher Choge.

In the final kick, it appeared that last year’s third-place finisher Heath would claim his first victory at 5th Ave. Relatively stocky and well-muscled, Heath swung his arms wide in an attempt to ward off McNamara on one side and Robinson on the other, but McNamara snuck around, raising his arm at the tape. Said McNamara after the run, “I was in dead last with 600 to go, everybody was going so fast I thought man, eventually it has to settle and it did. The last 400 people started coming back and I got excited. Once you start getting excited, cool things can happen.”

Post-race interviews:

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Categories: Brenda Martinez, Centrowitz, Jenny Simpson, Kim Conley, Mary Cain