National Scholastic Athletics Foundation

BOSTON - it was listed as event 18, the women's two-mile at the 18th annual New Balance Boston Indoor Games.

But it wasn't really one event Saturday night at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center.

This one was two. 

As just about everyone in the 4,500-fan sellout crowd old expected, it was three-time Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia against no one but herself - and she turned it into a 9:13.17 runaway, not a world record (that remained countrywoman Meseret Defar's 9:06.26 in 2009) and not even a meet record ( Defar's 9:10.50 in 2008) but still one brilliant performance that had the small group of Ethiopian flag-waving enthusiasts in the audience putting their vocal cords to the ultimate test

It was the other race - the race-within-a-race - this one 16-year-old Bronxville, N.Y. High School junior Mary Cain against eight of her elders as well as the national high school record - that got even greater readings on all the decibel meters.

At the end, Cain and the eight wound up nearly three quarters of a lap behind Dibaba.  But their results were still both ear-straining and eye-opening.

Beyond Dibaba, only Sheila Reid, the former two-time NCAA cross country champion for Villnanova and a 2012 Canadian Olympian, wound up beating Cain and that required a desperation sprint finish.

Reid crossed the line in 9:37.97, fighting off the schoolgirl's late rush, and Cain got there in 9:38.68, totally demolishing the national high school record of 9:55.92 that Coloradoan Melody Fairchild had held since 1991.

Left in their slipstream were such veteran talents as Nicole Sifuentes of Canada (9:38.78), and Americans Tara Erdmann (9:39.48), Sarah Bowman Brown (9:41.59), Ashley Higginson (9:49.00) and Brenda Martinez (9:5191.)

A week after she'd shattered the U.S. high school indoor mile record with 4:32.78 at the Armory in New York, Cain was again at the top of her game. Going through the mile post in 4:51, negative-split a 4:47 bringing it in.

"I was happy with my own performance, even though I'd hoped to run around 9:03," said Dibaba. "But it was very tough running alone tonight.

  "Before I came here, I'd heard about that young girl (Cain) and seeing her tonight, she is definitely a geat talent. She will be good for the sport in America."

  "Oh-my-gosh, it was exciting lining up against all these other great runners, " said Cain, who has opted out of scholastic track - and the Bronxville team - to run under the guidance of Oregon-based Alberto Salazar.
"I wasn't really running for a record, I just wanted to have a good race," said Cain, whose shoulder-shugging stride seems to be something Salazar needs to iron out.
"It was good to get this one under my belt.  Now I'll go back to the mile at the Millrose Games (Feb. 16 at the Armory, where she'll also have an official 1500-meter split built in.)  This was exciting tonight. I think Millrose will be even more exciting."

"Our plan is not to go for records," said Salazar.  "I told Mary her only job tonight was to compete well  The records will always come  But first will always have to be learning to compete."

  The Salazar-Cain coast-to-coast training regimen works with a lot of emails and videos - and the on-the-on-site observations back in Bronxville of New Zealander John Henwood.

  Obviously, Cain's potential transcends traditional high school competition. Look for other superstar talents to take a similar approach down the road.

  As seventh-placer Ashley Higginson, the Princeton grad who ran a close fourth in the U.S. Olympic Trials 3,000-meter steeplchase final last June, put it, "I ran well tonight, I set a PR (9:49.00).But Mary Cain, she's a talent of a lifetime.  All she has to do is stay patient.  Good things are bound to happen - one at a time."

 With Cain opting for higher-level competition, the girls junior mile went to Ravenscroft High / Raleigh, N.C.'s Wesley Frazier in 4:48.94.

That came before Middlesex's of Concord, Henry Wynne snared the boys mile crown in 4:11.73.

Neither set PR's -Frazier has run 4:42, Wynne 4:10.35  Regardless, both were most impressive.

  Both came in as stong favorites  Both justified all their press clippings and delivered virtually wire-to wire triumphs.

Wynne's 4:11.73 was a Connecticut state-indoor record performance.

"That's just the way I like to run it, get out fast and stay there," said the 6-foot-3, University of Virginia-bound Wynne. While Wynne was no threat to the meet record - 4:07.30 by Michael Coe in 2006 - he was never really endangered, either.

James Randon of Middlesex High / New Canaan, Ct. (4:12.89) had to fight off the late bid of Red Bank Catholic, N.J.'s Rob Napolitano (4:13.81) to save second place. Four others bested 4:20 - Jay Navin (4:15.89), Michael O'Donnell (4:17.20), Jack Hagood (4:17.34) and Bryce Kelley (4:18.50.)

  "I knew Randon was behind me almost all the way, but I didn't really think he was going to get past me, either," said Wynne "The crowd was awesome and the Jumbotron (big screen above the far turn) was a big help, too.  I could always see what the other guys were doing."

  At 6-3, Wynne is still growing and jokes that "if this keeps up, I may have to switch to basketball."  He'd sported a Mohawk haircut until recent days - "but my teammates made me get rid of it," he said.  "Big as this meet is, they thought I should look more presentable."

  Randon, bound for Yale, showed some signs of rust -" this was my first race since before Christmas," he said - but obvous potential, too.

   "I definitely want to break 4:10, he said, "Hopefully I'll do it by Nationals (mid-March at the New York Armory.)
And that could set the stage for a very big outdoor season.  Let's just see."

  While Wynne's winnng margin was relatively slim, Frazier's was huge.

  The real battle in the girls race was for second and Bethanie Brown (4:54.57) took the silver over Sarah Gillsepie (4:54.81) with Ryen Frazier (4:59.73) the only other sub-5.

"I felt really good, really relaxed," said Frazier, who is bound for Duke. "Lots of the other girls have been running well this year.  I just wanted to open it up from the beginning. Sarah made a run at me at the end, but I always knew I had it."

"I tried to kick it in, and thought I was closing a little bit," said Gillespie. "But I weakened and Bethanie (Brown) got by me, too. At the end. I just wanted to finish the race."

Top relay mark was the 7:51.98 4x800 win by St. A's Track Club (St. Anthony's of Long Island.)

With the Reggie Lewis Center sold out to its 4,500-fan capacity, along with a two-hour ESPN2 time slot on Sunday,
there was plenty of pre-meet anticipation.

The sport's big hope, of course, is that athletes of Cain's caliber stay in running for years and years and years, and do not bail out before they've reached the prime of their lives.

And if they needed any inspiration in that direction, it was provided by 46-year-old Masters miler Brad Barton of Ogden, Utah.

Leading from start to finish, Barton took the men's Masters mile - always a feature in the early phase of the New Balance slate - in 4:24.14,
convincingly beating ex-Northeastern University star Erik Nedeau (4:25.82) and 10 others.

While he was unable to beat the American Masters 45-49 indoor record, he was able to beat his own son, sort.

"My son Jacob, a two-time Utah state cross country champion, now a college sophomore, ran a 4:25 this morning in a meet at Utah State, so I was a little faster," said Barton, smiling.  Pretty good, I guess for a guy who'll be 47 on April 3rd."

Barton had been an NCAA All-America miler and steeplechaser in his years at Weber State (with bests of 4:00:45 and 8:31), running under famed distance coach Chick Hislop.  Soon after, he took a 20-year sabbatical from track - and with wife Alydia, herself a successful high school coach, raiseing a family of six -  ibefore deciding it was time to come back.

So what's his secret of long-run success? What's his advice to the younger generation?

"Keep a balance in your life," he tells the many he's addressed in his job as motivational/corporate/youth group speaker.
"Keep everything in perspective. Lead a full life. And if you can keep running a big part of your life, so much the better."