M0-14: Maurycy Pedroza Leads a Fast Young Field Through Chicago Heat

• Maurycy Pedroza won the M0-14 group in 1:21:47 (6:14/mi), finishing more than 1:31 ahead of runner-up Nolan Mussatt.
• Nolan Mussatt ran 1:23:18 (6:21/mi) for 2nd, with a strong close — his 96th-fastest women's split on the 15K-to-finish segment helped him hold off the rest of the field.
• 3rd and 4th were separated by just 20 seconds — Daniel Amador (1:26:34) edged Jonathan Ophus (1:26:54) — with both posting their sharpest splits on the 10K-to-15K segment.
• The top 10 spanned 14 minutes, from Pedroza's 1:21:47 down to Maxwell Mortensen's 1:35:18.

On a warm Chicago morning — 79°F, 20 mph winds, and low humidity — 53 boys took on the half marathon, and the M0-14 group delivered some genuinely impressive running. Maurycy Pedroza set the tone from the start, clicking off a 6:14/mi average over 13.1 miles in those conditions. His margin over Mussatt wasn't close — a gap of 1:31 in a race this short is decisive — and he never relinquished the lead across any checkpoint.

Nolan Mussatt ran a composed race for 2nd, clocking 1:23:18. What stands out is where he made his move: his fastest relative segment came in the back half, from 15K to the finish, suggesting he saved something for the end. Daniel Amador and Jonathan Ophus were locked in a tight duel through most of the race, both sharpest between 10K and 15K, before Amador pulled clear by 20 seconds at the line. In 5th, Sam Mortensen (1:28:36) showed his best running on the first half of the course, fading slightly in the standings as others found another gear late.

Behind the top five, Carter Hennessy, Sebastian Macias, and Samuel Amador ran within 35 seconds of each other (1:29:42 to 1:30:17), making for a compact 6th-through-8th cluster. All told, it was a strong showing from the youngest group on the course — running sub-7:00 miles in June heat is no small thing at any age.