TOP AMERICAN MILERS TO RACE FOR ROAD TITLE TONIGHT
By David Monti
(c) 2009 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Used with permission.

Some of America's top milers will take their talents to the streets tonight in Minneapolis, racing for the first-ever USA road mile titles.  Bragging rights, $22,500 in prize money and another $20,000 in time bonuses will be on the line.

"We have an amazing field for this inaugural championship, many of whom have competed against each other just this past month, and the new course means it's anyone's race and anyone's night to take home an extra $10,000," said Brian Mastel who directs the event. 

The big carrot is the $10,000 bonus on offer to the race champions should the winning man break 4:00 and the winning woman 4:28.  That looks entirely possible considering that ten of the men entered have already broken four minutes on the track, and that the top women's entrant, USA Olympic Trials 1500m champion Shannon Rowbury, has run a sizzling 4:20.34.

"It will be a fun race to watch," added Mastel.

The top entrants on the men's side include reigning USA indoor 3000m champion David Torrence (3:57.04 PB), former UCLA star Jon Rankin (3:54.24), recent BAA Mile winner Darren Brown (3:58:35), and former NCAA 5000m champion Bobby Curtis (3:57:20).  In the women's competition, Rowbury's chief rival will be former Fifth Avenue Mile champion Sara Hall (4:25/road), and 2008 Reebok Boston Indoor Games mile champion Jenelle Deatherage (4:31.58).

The championships are part of the well-established Medtronic TC 1 Mile, established in 2005, and organized by the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon.  Organizers estimate that 3200 runners will participate in various heats held on a new course on Nicollet Mall.  The course has a slight rise for the first three blocks, then maintains a slight downhill for seven blocks before rounding an easy curve and leveling off for the final 200 meters.