Masters Men NYC Half: Cassidy Owns the Streets from Staten Island to Central Park

• Michael Cassidy wins in 1:09:36 (5:19/mi), the fastest Masters Men finish on the day — a full 53 seconds clear of runner-up Hafid Chani.
• Tight battle for 3rd–4th: Cesar Lizano (1:10:48) and Luke Baltrusch (1:10:52) were separated by just four seconds, with Lizano making up ground late on the 20K-to-finish stretch.
• Age is just a number: Guillermo Pineda Morales, at 53, cracked the top 20 with a 1:16:10 — the elder statesman of the listed field, outrunning hundreds of younger competitors in the Masters field.
• Nearly 6,000 finishers made this one of the deepest Masters Men fields on the NYC Half calendar — Cassidy's 5:19/mi held up across every one of them.

Michael Cassidy came to run, and he made it clear early. Tracking the gender standings, he moved steadily through the men's field — 51st at the first checkpoint, climbing to 48th by 10K, then surging to 44th by 20K and holding that position to the tape. His closing 20K-to-finish leg was sharp enough to rank among the 42nd-fastest splits in the entire field on that segment, a sign that while others were fading in the 40°F chill, Cassidy was still pressing. His 1:09:36 and 5:19/mi average left no ambiguity at the top of the Masters Men standings.

Behind him, Hafid Chani of Paterson, NJ ran a controlled 1:10:29 at 5:23/mi to claim second, posting one of the stronger early splits — his 5K-to-10K leg ranked 47th-fastest in the field on that segment. Third and fourth played out as a genuine race within a race: Cesar Lizano (1:10:48, 5:24/mi) from San José and Chicago's Luke Baltrusch (1:10:52, 5:24/mi) ran nearly in lockstep, but Lizano was the one gaining ground late — his 20K-to-finish split ranked 48th-fastest in the field, compared to Baltrusch's stronger earlier surge that had faded by the finish. Four seconds was all that separated them. Jose Garcia rounded out the top five in 1:11:53 (5:29/mi), holding off a strong back half of the leaderboard.

Further down, Guillermo Pineda Morales deserves a mention: the 53-year-old from Ridgewood, NY crossed in 1:16:10 at 5:49/mi to finish 18th among the listed Masters Men — a reminder that this field, nearly 6,000 strong, was packed with runners who refuse to slow down with age.