Boilermaker 5K M55-59: Quang Le Runs Away With It

• Quang Le wins in 21:53 (7:03/mi) — more than two minutes clear of the field in a 125-man M55-59 race.
• Erik Sanschagrin takes 2nd in 24:03 (7:44/mi), edging Michael Pittsley (24:45, 7:58/mi) for the runner-up spot by 42 seconds.
• Frank Elias and Thomas Andre separated by just 21 seconds at 4th (25:03) and 5th (25:24).
• Thomas Jennings and Michael Marino both clocked 25:59, with Jennings holding 7th and Marino 8th by the finest of margins.

Quang Le, racing on home turf in Utica, turned the M55-59 field into a solo time trial. His 7:03/mi pace on a humid 75°F morning — 90% humidity is no small thing — left the rest of the field more than two full minutes behind. That kind of margin doesn't just win a race; it reshapes it into a question of who finishes second.

That question belonged to Erik Sanschagrin of Saint-Gilles, QC, who answered it in 24:03 at 7:44/mi. Sanschagrin held off Michael Pittsley (24:45, 7:58/mi) by 42 seconds, with Frank Elias (25:03, 8:04/mi) and Thomas Andre (25:24, 8:11/mi) rounding out a tight top five. The gap from 2nd to 5th was just 81 seconds across four finishers — a genuine race within the race for the podium spots behind Le.

Further back, the competition stayed close. John Stowell (25:56) and Thomas Jennings (25:59) were separated by three seconds, while Jennings and Michael Marino finished in the exact same displayed time of 25:59 — places 7th and 8th decided by the clock's finer digits. Michael Flack (26:30) and Hajrudin Rosic (26:36) continued the tight clustering through the top ten, with Bruce Levine (26:37) just one second further back in 11th. In thick summer humidity, 125 men in the M55-59 field found out exactly what they had — and Quang Le had considerably more than anyone else.