Masters Men NYC Half: Cassidy Conquers Prospect Park to Central Park

• Michael Cassidy won the Masters Men race in 1:09:31 (5:18/mi), finishing ahead of Hafid Chani by 56 seconds.
• Tightest battle of the day: Cesar Lizano and Luke Baltrusch both clocked 1:10:44 — same displayed time, yet Lizano edged ahead for 3rd by the slimmest of margins.
• Guillermo Pineda Morales, 53, cracked the top 20 in a field of nearly 6,000 masters men, finishing 18th in 1:16:07 at 5:48/mi.
• The top four all finished inside 1:11 on a crisp 40°F morning through the streets of New York.

Michael Cassidy of Staten Island ran away with the Masters Men title, crossing in 1:09:31 at a blistering 5:18/mi average. His race unfolded with steady authority — he moved from 51st to 44th among the men's field through the middle miles and then delivered one of the sharpest closing legs of anyone near him, posting the 41st-fastest split in the field on the 20K-to-finish stretch. That late acceleration put the result beyond doubt.

Hafid Chani of Paterson, NJ was the closest challenger, finishing 2nd in 1:10:27. Chani showed his own early speed with the 47th-fastest split in the field on the 5K–10K segment, but Cassidy's 56-second advantage at the line tells the real story of how commanding the win was. Right behind Chani came the race's most dramatic moment: Cesar Lizano (San José, age 44) and Luke Baltrusch (Chicago, age 42) both registered 1:10:44, but it was Lizano who took 3rd, edging Baltrusch for 4th by a fraction that the clock barely captured. Notably, Lizano got there the hard way — he ran the 47th-fastest closing split in the field from 20K to the finish, climbing from 72nd to 59th among the men over the course of the race. Baltrusch, meanwhile, had surged earlier (moving from 52nd to 46th through 15K) before fading slightly in the final stretch.

Jose Garcia rounded out the top five in 1:11:50, with Jeremy Guidoni (6th, 1:12:10), Fleet Hower (7th, 1:12:45), Hisato Suetsugu (8th, 1:12:56), and Ryan Marshall (9th, 1:12:59) filling out a tightly packed chase pack separated by just 49 seconds across four places. Micah Polansky completed the top ten in 1:13:27. With nearly 6,000 masters men on the course from Prospect Park to Central Park, the depth of this field was formidable — and Cassidy navigated every mile of it at a pace most runners half his age would envy.