M30-34: Lipschitz Surges to the Front in a Deep 688-Man Field

• Adam Lipschitz wins in 43:14 (4:38/mi), climbing from 9th among men at 5K to 3rd by 10K and taking the M30-34 title outright.
• Reid Buchanan finishes 2nd in 43:38 — just 24 seconds back — after tracking a nearly identical arc through the field (6th → 4th → 4th among men).
• Futsum Zienasellassie rounds out the podium in 44:32, posting the 6th-fastest men's split on the 10K-to-finish segment to lock in 3rd.
• Stephen Rathbun, the 2021 Boilermaker open champion, checks in 4th in 48:11 — a sharp contrast to the sub-44 pace up front, but a solid anchor for the M30-34 podium chase.

Lipschitz came to life in the middle stretch. Sitting 9th among men through the opening 5K, he posted the 3rd-fastest men's split from 5K to 10K and surged into 3rd in the men's field — a position he held all the way to the tape. His 4:38/mi average over 15 kilometers in the Utica humidity was the class of this 688-runner field.

Buchanan was right on his heels throughout that same surge, recording the 4th-fastest men's 5K-to-10K split and moving from 6th to 4th among men by the halfway mark. The 24-second gap at the finish tells the story of a genuine chase — Buchanan ran the middle miles faster than nearly everyone in the field, but Lipschitz had just a little more. Zienasellassie, meanwhile, made his move later: the 6th-fastest men's split on the closing 10K-to-finish leg was enough to seal 3rd in 44:32, 54 seconds behind the winner.

The gap from the podium to fourth is where the race fractures. Rathbun — who won the Boilermaker open race outright back in 2021 — came in 4th in 48:11 at 5:10/mi, more than four minutes behind Lipschitz. Jordon Hoffman of Rome, NY followed in 5th at 48:40, with Stephen Paddock (49:31), Christopher Petroff (51:08), and John Salva (52:00) filling out the top eight. The field spread wide from there, with John-Louis Pane rounding out the top ten in 52:31 and Bryant Farley (53:45) and Justin Bender (54:05) close behind in 11th and 12th.