The Fifth Avenue Mile on Sunday was a runner’s paradise – beautiful weather, big crowds on Fifth Avenue, and a great match-up that came down to the wire between Olympic 1500 meter bronze medalist Nick Willis and Bernard Lagat, both of whom, to put it mildly, were moving. Leading up the headline race were some great CPTC performances by the youngsters. To name only a few (check out here for full CPTC results): Jay Barry, with minimal mile-pace training, casually destroyed the rest of the field to win the 30-34 age-group, running 4:34, 6 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher; in the 25-29 group, Michael Basen (proud new father) and Andy “Bons†Bonventre took second and third, both running 4:29; Melanie Murphy took first in 20-24, with a 5:12; and Brian Gertzen (4:09.3) and Jason Ostenson (4:15.3), running in the local road mile championships against an intimidating Westchester-packed field, took fourth and seventh.
