M40-44: Sam Njue Wins a Hot One in Boston

• Sam Njue took the M40-44 title in 35:13 (5:40/mi), finishing 14 seconds clear of runner-up Justin Maloney.
• The top five were separated by just 54 seconds, with all five men breaking 5:50/mi pace in 85°F heat and 64% humidity.
• Brian Studer and Sean Murphy both crossed in 39:41 — same clock time, different places, with Studer edging Murphy by the finest of margins.
• A field of 387 finishers made M40-44 one of the deeper age groups on the course.

Sam Njue of Rochester, NH ran a controlled, confident race to claim the M40-44 crown. He moved steadily through the men's field as the race progressed — tracking from 58th among men at the 5K mark to 51st by 8K, then pushing to 49th at the finish — and he saved something for the back half, posting the 37th-fastest split in the field on the 8K-to-finish stretch. At 5:40/mi on a sweltering Boston morning, that's a performance that holds up in any conditions.

Justin Maloney of Somerville ran 35:27 to claim second, though his race told a slightly different story: he was actually moving up through the men's field in the early going before the closing miles saw him slip a few spots. He still crossed in 5:42/mi — more than enough to hold off Tomas Folch of Brookline, who rounded out the podium in 35:42. Folch, like Maloney, gave a little ground late, but his 5:45/mi average kept third place secure. John Colavincenzo (35:54) and Patrick Hogan (36:07) completed a tight top five, with Hogan the only man in that group to finish exactly where he started in terms of men's field position.

Further back, the race had its own drama at 13th and 14th. Brian Studer and Sean Murphy both stopped the clock at 39:41, but the timing chips told the story — Studer's name appears ahead of Murphy's, meaning he edged him by a fraction of a second that the display doesn't show. With 387 men finishing in the heat, every second — and every sliver of a second — counted.