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Thursday's Medtronic TC 1 Mile will give 2600 citizen athletes a chance to test themselves at the sport's classic distance, while a much smaller group of elite athletes will be running all-out for significant cash prizes. It will be the fourth annual edition for Minnesota's most important road mile.
The venue will be Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. A mass wave of about 1000 runners will start things of at 6:50 p.m., followed by age-group and championship waves beginning at 7:53 p.m. The elites, running for a $25,000 prize money purse, will bring the show to a rousing close. A special $10,000 bonus is on the line for the first man to break 4:00.00 and the first woman to break 4:28.00.
Steve Sherer leads the men's entry list. The 27 year-old athlete ran 3:56-flat during the indoor season, and finished third in the AT&T USA Indoor Championships at 1500m. His top challengers will be Kenyan Haron Lagat, the former Texas Tech athlete who won last Sunday's Union-Tribune Race for Literacy 8-K in San Diego. Lagat ran 3:58.48 during the 2008 indoor season. Former Notre Dame star Luke Watson also hopes to be in the mix (3:57.83 PB) as do Ryan Kleimenhagen (3:59.00), Vincent Rono (3:59.63), Eliud Njubi (3:56.84), Sean McCabe (4:03.33) and Jordan Fife (3:59.74). Christian Hesch was scheduled to compete, but is unlikely because of a hip injury.
Olympian and Twin Cities resident Carrie Tollefson was to headline the women's field, but had a recent illness which knocked her out of last Sunday's Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational. She probably won't line up for Thursday's mile. That leaves three-time NCAA 1500m champion, Tiffany McWilliams, as the top entrant. She's run 4:29.56 for the mile and 4:06.30 for 1500m. Other contenders include Serbia's Marina Muncan (4:34.67 PB), Kenya's Rose Kosgei (4:10.64 1500m PB), Ethiopian Meskerem Legesse (4:03.96 1500m PB), and Team USA Minnesota's Emily Brown (4:37.58 PB).
The first man and woman will each receive $4,000, the second highest road mile first prize in the United States behind the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile in New York City.
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