M35-39: Hillary Bor Dominates with a Near-Course-Record 43:40

• Hillary Bor, 43:40 (4:41/mi): wins M35-39 in a time matching the all-time men's course record set by Gabriel Geay in 2018 — and only six seconds off John Korir's 2025 winning time across the entire men's field.
• Gap at the top: Bor finished 2:37 clear of runner-up Joseph Whelan (46:17) — a margin that was never really in doubt.
• Closing kick: Bor posted the 4th-fastest split on the 10K-to-finish segment among all men, while Whelan ran the 12th-fastest 5K-to-10K men's split — each man's sharpest stretch of the race came at a different moment.
• 634 finishers lined up in M35-39, making it one of the deepest fields on the course.

Hillary Bor didn't just win M35-39 — he ran a time that would have won this race outright in multiple prior editions. His 43:40 at a 4:41/mi clip through Utica's humidity matched Gabriel Geay's 2018 winning mark and sat only six seconds behind John Korir's 2025 overall men's victory. That's the kind of performance that makes a divisional win feel like something much larger. He moved from 7th among men at the 5K to 5th by the 10K and held that position home, sealing the result with the 4th-fastest closing split among all men from 10K to the finish.

Joseph Whelan of Webster, NY was a clear and comfortable second in 46:17 (4:58/mi), his strongest stretch coming on the 5K-to-10K segment where he ran the 12th-fastest men's split in the field. The gap between Whelan and third-place Jonathan Lindenauer of Ballston Lake, NY was substantial — Lindenauer crossed in 50:39 (5:26/mi), moving up six places in the men's field over the final stretch thanks to the 30th-fastest closing men's split.

John Kelley (51:51) and Scott Bickard (52:15) rounded out the top five, with Bickard making a notable late move — jumping from 67th among men at the 10K all the way to 55th by the finish on the strength of the 42nd-fastest closing men's split. Behind them, a tight cluster of six athletes — Steve Esposito through Jeffrey Olney — finished between 53:33 and 53:53, separated by just 20 seconds across three places. In a 634-person field, that kind of compression deep in the results is its own small race within the race.