If you found yourself trying to cross the street in the Upper East Side last Sunday or turned your television set to your local ABC7 coverage, you probably asked yourself two questions: “Is the Fifth Avenue Mile today?” and “Wait, who’s Gracie Morris?”

Usually the unofficial end to the middle-distance racing season, the 44th running of this race may have snuck up on you because, oddly, it precedes the World Championships this year. Most years, this race serves as a homecoming of sorts for Olympians, World medalists, and Eurotrippers who just finished up their summer racing seasons and are hoping to use the final bit of juice in their legs to pick up one last check before riding off into a postseason break that begins with karaoke and ends with a free trip to Hawaii.

But this time, the 20-block southbound commute was sandwiched squarely between the Diamond League final and the first rounds in Tokyo.

On the men’s side, a tightly packed race yielded a thrilling shuffle of the places in the final meters, where Parker Wolfe nearly came away with the victory but Yared Nuguse managed to find another gear and finish his season on a high note, winning in 3:48. Behind them, Drew Hunter kept the podiums entirely American by edging out Irishman Nick Griggs and Kenyan Festus Lagat by 0.3 seconds.

For most of the women’s race, it looked like a one-runner show as defending champ Karissa Schweizer went out hard and gapped most of the field, with Puma Elite’s Gracie Morris trying to stick on her tail but trailing for most of the race by a few meters. But Morris, who only finished ninth in the 1500m at USAs but bounced back to win the Sir Walter Miler in a 4:23.74 PB, could never fully be dropped and ended up overhauling Schweizer as she tired to take the win in 4:16. Schweizer ended up getting pipped at the line by Kayley DeLay as well, a strong run from the Brooks steeplechase specialist.

Unless you’re an avid reader of our newsletter highlights or a diehard TCU fan, Gracie Morris may not be a household name in your home. She’s set PBs in the 800m, 1500m, and mile in her first year as a pro, but as a collegian, she never finished higher than 16th at NCAAs and her 1500m best in college was 4:10.35. Morris is only the fourth Fifth Avenue Mile winner, male or female, in the last 20 years to not be an Olympian, and the first since Eric Jenkins’s 2016 victory.

But wait… how often does Fifth Avenue happen before the World Championships? Weren’t the fields super watered as a result? It’s a fair criticism, particularly given the extremely close proximity between the two events this year. In 2019, Fifth Ave preceded Worlds in Doha, but the gap was nearly a month—plenty of time for Jenny Simpson to claim her eighth title and recover to finish eighth in the 1500m final. And it’s true that many of the players you’d usually see at Central Park East this time of year are currently halfway around the world. But Morris was only the fifth seed by mile PB or seventh by 1500m PB, racing against two U.S. steeplechase champs (Val Constien and Krissy Gear), two 4:00 1500m runners (Schweizer and Dani Jones), and a handful of speedy 800m specialists like Ajee’ Wilson and Raevyn Rogers.

This was no kicker’s race, either. Thanks to Schweizer taking things out hot and giving Morris a target to chase, she crossed the finish line in 4:15.5 (officially 4:16 as road results are rounded up to the nearest second). That’s the third fastest winning mark in history, just off the 4:14.8 course record run twice, by Schweizer in 2024 and Laura Muir in 2022. Of course, “trackflation” applies to road miles as well and times are generally getting faster, but Morris did run faster than Simpson, Regina Jacobs, Shannon Rowbury, and Mary Decker Slaney ever did on the course, and they’re all former Fifth Ave champs with sub-four minute 1500m PBs. Morris’s, for the moment, is only 4:04.05.

So was Morris’s victory a fluke win in a fluke year, or a performance we’ll look back on in a few seasons as the start of something big? Based on the rest of the freshman-pro’s trajectory this year, it’s more likely the latter. The move to North Carolina has clearly agreed with Morris, and while she’s still hovering on the border of truly contending for U.S. teams in the middle distances, the possibility is not looking nearly as far off as it once did.

So if you were trying to cross the street in New York last weekend and nearly got run down by Morris’s big kick, remember her name. Maybe you just got a story you’ll be telling your grandkids one day about crossing paths with America’s next great miler.

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