Running News Daily

San Diego runner Nikki Hiltz, set a new Blue Mile record in the Women's Mile

Nikki Hiltz of San Diego set a new Blue Mile record in the women´s Mile Championships clocking 4:30, during The Grand Blue Mile in Des Moines on Tuesday.

Nikki Hiltz and Tripp Hurt raced to the USATF Road 1-Mile National Championship Tuesday evening on the streets of Des Moines as part of the 10th Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield Grand Blue Mile.

Hurt won the men’s race in 4:04, in a photo finish as the top-five finishers all finished within a second of each other. Hiltz took the lead of the women’s race off the final turn and held off three-time Grand Blue Mile champion Heather Kampf to set an event record in 4:30.

“It’s not just a road race, it’s the USA Road Mile Championship and it’s my first national championship win,” Hiltz said. “It was awesome and the field definitely gave me a run for my money. We got after it and I knew in the last straightaway we’d switch into a new gear. No one made it easy.”

Hanna Fields was also in the lead pack of the race as she and Hiltz took over the lead from Kampf midway through the race.

The men’s race featured a dramatic finish as Hurt sprinted on the outside to best the talented field to the tape to clip Brandon Lasater by just one two-tenths of a second.

“My teammate, Nick (Harris, who finished third), was next to me and I was thinking we needed to battle and hope one of us got it,” Hurt said of the sprint to the finish. My goal was to stay patient and wait as long as I could to make a move to the front. It paid off.”

Will Leer led early in the race, trailed by a tight pack before Kyle Medina briefly took the lead at the three-minute mark as the leaders made the course’s first turn. Seconds later, as the still tightly bunched pack turned on to Grand Avenue, Daniel Herrera led out front until the pace quickened in the final 200 yards with Tripp moving to the outside of the pack to reach the finish line first.

Hiltz and Hurt each earned $5,000 for the national title as part of $30,000 in total prize money awarded. The participants in the USATF Road 1-Mile Championship races were part of more than 4,000 runners who took part in the 10th Annual Grand Blue Mile.