#35 - Kessler Blazes In Boston (a mini-newsletter)

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Kessler Rocks Boston

You can be forgiven if you thought that ‘22 World Champion Jake Wightman had the best chance to win the 1500 at the New Balance GP in Boston last week. Instead, when the dust settled the Scotsman seemed to be a bit shocked that he lost to the 20-year-old phenomenon from Ann Arbor.

Hobbs Kessler, instead of passively letting more experienced runners call the shots, grabbed command of the race at 1100m and sprinted away from the field, winning almost unchallenged in 3:33.66, missing Yared Nuguse’s American Record by just 0.44.

Not surprisingly, it is the fastest time ever by a Michigander, bettering the 3:34.99 that Grant Fisher ran in Madrid a year ago. The handy T&FN formula from the invaluable Big Gold Book says it’s worth 3:50.76 for the mile, faster than the fastest Michigan time there, the 3:52.03 that training partner Morgan Beadlescomb ran two years ago.

Wanamaker Mile On Sunday

This is a big part of the reason I am rushing this newsletter out the door on a week where I have had near-zero time to work on Michtrack things. The annual classic in the Armory, the Millrose Games, is probably the best (and certainly the oldest) indoor invitational in the United States, and will feature plenty of highlights, but the best may be the final event, the Wanamaker Mile, where Hobbs Kessler will face off against Yared Nuguse, Cooper Teare and a bunch of other notables. There is talk that favored Nuguse will be chasing the World Record of 3:47.01.

Kessler won’t be the only Michigander on the Armory track. Grant Fisher will be racing the 2 Mile against current World 1500 champ Josh Kerr, Cole Hocker, Joe Klecker, etc. The best ever by a Michigan HS alum is the 8:11.09 that Fisher ran at the Pre Classic in 2021 outdoors. Indoors, that list had been mothballed for lack of activity in the last four decades. The best on record was Dan Heikkinen’s 8:29.2 from 1982, but both Fisher and Morgan Beadlescomb would have gone through 2M faster in their best indoor 5Ks if someone had taken the split.

Cindy Sember (Ann Arbor Huron—>Michigan—>Great Britain) will be in the 60 hurdles.

Look for TJ Hansen of Freeland in the high school mile. This could be his best opportunity to get the fast mile he’s been chasing all indoor season—if he is comfortable on a banked track (remember he did run 4:10.79 on the banks in Chicago).

We’ll have some sprints to watch for too, as Motor City TC will be in the HS girls 4 × 200, Kylee King will be in the HS 600, Nevaeh Burns in the 300.

How To Watch The Millrose Games

Millrose Live Results

And that’s all for now…

It was essential that I get this out before the weekend, and it was too crazy a work week to do anything else. Look forward to a full newsletter next week that catches up on everything.

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Today’s newsletter got out the door without proofreading. Apologies to anyone who suffered as a result!