M70-74 at the NYC Half: Jaime Palacios Owns Prospect Park to Central Park

• Palacios wins in 1:47:26 — an 8:12/mi clip that left the rest of the M70-74 field well behind.
• Carl Holmes ran the fastest closing segment among the top five, posting the strongest 20K-to-finish split to rocket from deep in the pack to 4th place.
• Bradford Goz and Rick Markert faded through the back half, each slipping steadily through the men's field from midrace onward.
• 86 men aged 70–74 finished on a crisp 40°F morning — solid conditions for fast times across the board.

Jaime Palacios of Fresh Meadows ran a composed, methodical race from start to finish. He entered the second half already climbing through the men's field and never relented, posting a strong Second Half split that sealed a wire-to-wire victory in 1:47:26. At 8:12 per mile over 13.1 miles at age 71, it was a performance that demanded respect from every M70-74 finisher behind him. Christopher Robinson of Bedford finished second in 1:58:46, more than eleven minutes back, and Carl Holmes — despite clocking in third on the clock at 1:56:14 — was edged to 4th in the standings, a reminder that Holmes started slower and came on strong but couldn't quite claw back enough time.

Holmes's race is worth a closer look. He sat outside the top four through most of the course, but his 20K-to-finish split was the sharpest of any top-five finisher, propelling him past several rivals in the final stretch. That late charge earned him 4th in 1:56:14 — a genuinely competitive time, just not quite enough to catch Robinson or the vanishing Palacios.

At the other end of the top five, Bradford Goz and Rick Markert had tougher afternoons. Goz, who finished 3rd in 2:15:14, drifted steadily backward through the men's field from the 5K onward — his 5K–10K split was among the slower ones in the top tier, and he never recovered ground. Markert, 5th in 2:17:50, showed a similar pattern, slipping through the 10K–15K segment before finding slightly better footing late. Gabriel Dore of Ferme Neuve, Quebec rounded out the top six in 2:19:22, completing a podium-adjacent group separated by just over four minutes from 3rd to 6th.