Event Operator 

A high-energy host known for his magnetic presence and deep connection to the running community, Ronnel Blackmon brings years of experience as an emcee, announcer, and race day personality at premier running events across the country. His dynamic style and passion for endurance sports have made him a favorite among athletes and race organizers alike. Get to know the emcee of the 2026 Running USA Industry Conference in this new 5 Questions interview with Jay Holder, Running USA Executive Director..

NEW YORK (06-Jun) -- There may not be lights, but there will be cameras and plenty of action. The 53rd edition of the Mastercard New York Mini 10K, scheduled here for Saturday at 8 a.m. in Central Park, is really an extension of this city's famous theater district about one mile to the south.  It's a big production, with stars, a supporting cast, an audience, and thousands of extras. "The sense of joy and camaraderie at the Mini is unlike anything else," said New York Road Runners board chair Nenna Lynch at a press conference today. She's right.  The Mini, along with the TCS New York City Marathon and New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile, is one of New York Road Runners' three signature events with a long history.  The Mini was founded in 1972, just three weeks before the passage of Title IX.  There were no road races for women then and the Mini changed that forever.  Seventy-two women finished the first edition of the race which was won by 17 year-old Jacki Dixon, who covered the then-six-mile course in 37:02. "I was just hanging on the last five miles," said Dixon, who is now the mayor of Loveland, Colo., under her married name of Jacki Marsh. Like women's running, the Mini grew slowly.  It wasn't until 1978 that the race had over 3,000 finishers, and it didn't hit the 5,000 mark until 1985.  L'eggs, a brand of women's hosiery, sponsored the race from 1978 through 1990, then Advil took over from 1991 through 1997.  The current title sponsor, Mastercard, didn't come on board until the 2021 race (the first edition after the COVID pandemic shutdown), and this will be the fifth year that the credit card company will have its name on the race.  New York Road Runners officials expect over 10,000 women to finish the race (there were a record 9,688 finishers last year). Of course, some of the greatest female distance runners have won the Mini, including Norwegians Grete Waitz (five times) and Ingrid Kristiansen (twice).  Kenya's Tegla Loroupe won five times, as did Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat.  Another Kenyan star, Mary Keitany, won the race three times. This year's race features a superstar cast of Olympians and other fast women, like Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon champions Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi of Kenya; like American Olympians Weini Kelati, Emily Sisson, Emily Infeld, and Dakotah Popehn; and American up-and-comers like Taylor Roe, Emma Grace Hurley and Amanda Vestri.  Each of them would love to become a Mini winner. But the real stars are the nearly quarter million women who have finished the Mini since the race's inception.  Fast and slow, black and white, young and old, these women have come from all places and walks of life to celebrate the joy of running, to have a race they can call their own.  This is just as true now as it was back in 1972. "I absolutely love all-women's races," said women's running pioneer Marilyn Bevans who, at 75 years-old, will run the Mini for the 14th time.  "I absolutely love it." And if you're a man, the Mini has a place for you, too.  Get over the Central Park tomorrow, find a spot along the course, and cheer for these active women.  It's one of the greatest off-Broadway shows you can see, and admission is free. PHOTO: New York Road Runners chief commercial officer Christine Burke (left) with women's running pioneer Marilyn Bevans (Photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)  

(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. NEW YORK (05-Jun) -- Halfway through the 2024 Mastercard New York Mini 10K here in Central Park, Amanda Vestri quickly took stock of her position.  She was running in fourth place and the three women who were just one-second ahead of her --Senbere Teferi of Ethiopia, and Sharon Lokedi and Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya-- were among the world's best road runners.  It was time to test herself. "My goal was to be top American in the race," she told Race Results Weekly a year ago.  "So, there was a moment in time when it was either stay back with the chunk of the Americans or go ahead with the faster women at the front." Vestri, now 25, stayed cool as the three Africans eventually pulled away.  She went into grind mode and pushed through the second half alone.  Somehow, she managed to achieve a negative split (15:40 for the first half and 15:37 for the second), and finished fourth in a personal best 31:17.  She earned $7500 in prize money, a hugely important payday for a runner who was part of a well-established training group but had no shoe company sponsorship at the time. "That's probably one of the first things that my coach (Pete Rea of ZAP Endurance) mentioned to me after the race," Vestri said in a telephone interview yesterday when asked about that negative split.  She continued: "Obviously, the goal is the same this year, just to go faster." Vestri --along with another 10,000 women-- will race the 53rd edition of the Mini here on Saturday, the world's first-ever road race for women, founded in 1972 by New York Road Runners.  She is part of an incredible elite field which includes some of the very best American distance women, like Olympians Weini Kelati, Emily Sisson, Emily Infeld, and Dakotah Popehn.  Abbott World Majors champions Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi of Kenya, and Gotytom Gebreslase are also in the field (Teferi will not be back to defend her title). Vestri comes into this year's Mini as a completely different athlete from a year ago.  Working with her agent Josh Cox, she picked up a sponsorship with Brooks Running (based, at least in part, on her Mini performance), and has been stacking up months of quality training under Coach Rea and his deputy Ryan Warrenburg. "I just feel like the consistency that we had built throughout the last summer of 2023, after I graduated, and then into 2024 started compounding," Vestri explained.  "Month after month, I just felt like I was getting better and better, and training seemed to be getting better every month, even every week." After her Mini success, Vestri has achieved extraordinary growth as an athlete.  She took fifth in the USA Olympic Team Trials 10,000m last summer just three weeks after the Mini, beaten only by Weini Kelati, Parker Valby, Karissa Schweizer, and Jessica McClain.  She got second at the USATF 6K road running championships, and sixth at the USATF 10K road running championships. A year earlier it seemed unlikely that she would be a factor in those races, but her run at the Mini changed all that. "It just kind of all culminated at the New York Mini," Vestri said.  "That's why this race is so special to me.  I don't know; it just kind of gave me a different confidence as a runner."  She added: "I'm excited to be back." Vestri wanted to try the half-marathon distance last fall, and Coach Rea was all-in.  She had planned to peak for the Valencia Half-Marathon at the end of October, but a little injury forced her to push back her schedule.  Instead of taking the long trip to Spain, Vestri went to Florida and ran in the low-key OUC Orlando Half-Marathon last December.  She popped a solo 1:08:12 in her debut making her the fourth-fastest American for 2024. "My coach and I always wanted to go up to the half this past fall," Vestri said.  "The plan was to do the Valencia Half-Marathon because we were just like, we want to run fast.  We want to go as far under 67 minutes as we can, and when I had that hiccup, that little injury, in October we were like, OK, we have to re-route now.  So, I took a few weeks off, and I'm actually the one who brought up the idea of doing Orlando just as a rust-buster, not for a good time.  I went into that race going, if I run under 70 minutes I'm going to be stoked.  So for me, it came as quite a shock that I came across the line close to 68 minutes.  I guess I didn't realize how good it was at the time." She ran even faster at the Aramco Half-Marathon last January, arguably the most competitive half-marathon in the United States.  She finished fourth in 1:07:35 after smoking through 10K in 31:40 and ten miles in 51:17.  Remarkably, Vestri wasn't satisfied with that performance because her expectations had risen. "We started thinking better numbers in Houston because we know how stacked Houston is," Vestri said.  "Houston is another one of those races I feel, and my coaches feel, was an under-performance day.  I kind of grade myself on effort and performance outcomes after the race."  She continued: "Houston should have been a 67-flat day, or under.  That's where my fitness was at at the time." Vestri would run one more half in that training cycle, the USATF Half-Marathon Championships in Atlanta on March 2, part of the Publix Atlanta Marathon Weekend hosted by the Atlanta Track Club.  On a raw and windy day, she took third on a hilly course in 1:08:17 behind Taylor Roe (1:07:22) and Emma Grace Hurley (1:07:35).  She qualified for Team USATF for the (now cancelled) 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships. "Atlanta was just a grind fest," Vestri lamented.  "I felt really, really bad the whole way.  That one was all heart.  There was no good feelings for me in that race, physically." Since then Vestri has raced three times, from the mile to 10,000m.  She was happy with two of them, but the third was a big disappointment for her.  At The TEN in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., on March 29, she finished 18th in 31:56.56, nowhere near what she had hoped for. "That race was one of the ugliest races of my life," Vestri groaned.  She continued: "When me and my coaches sat down after that race, we all think that what happened is that the three half-marathons, which was a new distance for me last year, in the span of three months that I did it in was just too much on my body and I did not give myself a chance to recover after them.  We were asking my body a little too much at that point." Vestri's most recent race, a 5000m personal best at the Sound Running Track Fest in Los Angeles on May 24, went much better.  She finished fifth in a personal best 15:01.22.  That came on the heels of a 4:47.8 road mile in North Carolina, a race she did for training.  Those two races stimulated a different part of her aerobic system, part of her quest to be a more complete athlete. "We're going to dip down now," said Vestri, who explained that she needed to also work on her speed.  "It's not going to be comfortable; it's going to feel like you're sprinting.  But, at the end of the day that's only going to help your 5K, which is going to help your 10K, which is going to help your half-marathon, which is going to help your marathon.  That's kind of the approach that we took for that one." Reflecting on the past 12 months, Vestri has learned a lot about professional running and about herself.  She's learned to trust the key people who are in her corner, she understands better the business end of the sport, and she's learned not to worry too much about the approval of others.  She's also trying not to be so hard on herself. "Because I take my workouts so seriously I do have those high expectations for myself," she said.  "It's me putting those expectations on myself, it's no one else.  I just feel like that's always how I've been.  I think that's ingrained in a lot of runners.  We're always, like, type-A, I feel.  I envy the type-B runners.  I know some type-B runners and I'm like, I wish I was you." The 2025 Mastercard New York Mini 10K will be broadcast LIVE and FREE on four different platforms on Saturday beginning at 7:45 a.m. EDT: . WABC-TV . ESPN+ . abc7.ny.com . NYRR Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@nyrrvideo) PHOTO: Amanda Vestri after finishing third at the 2025 USATF Half-Marathon Championships in Atlanta on March 2 (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)

(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. ALBANY, N.Y. (31-May) -- Through a lashing rain and several ankle-deep puddles, Molly Born of the Puma Elite Running team cruised to victory at the 47th Delightful Run For Women 5K.  Despite the awful weather, the 25-year-old former Oklahoma State athlete ran a surprisingly fast 15:31, finishing six seconds ahead of her teammate Jessica McGorty.  Born's time was a personal best and the fastest here in 11 years. "I'm just excited to get back out racing pushing it, making it hard, getting the most out of it," said Born, who hadn't run a race since last November because she was recovering from a stress fracture. Born made her intentions known early.  She and McGorty led key rivals Amy Davis-Green (Hansons-Brooks ODP) and Anna Kostarellis (Asics) through the uphill first kilometer.  The wind and rain were hitting them directly in the face, but both Born and McGorty looked composed.  Born was embracing the bad conditions. "The headwind was really bad in the first, like, K," Born told Race Results Weekly.  "But, I kind of like the bad weather, too." As the leaders turned left into Washington Park where the course goes up and down several short hills, Born used the first downhill to open a gap on McGorty.  She split the first (mostly uphill) mile in 5:17, two seconds ahead of McGorty, a 1500m runner with a powerful kick. "Jess is so fast, I needed to make the race hard," Born said of her strategy.  "I just felt good the first mile." Born ran the up-and-down second mile in a very fast 5:00, increasing her lead on McGorty to 20 seconds.  She shot one final glance back over her left shoulder before plowing through a huge puddle at the park's exit.  When she made the final right turn onto Washington Avenue for the long straightaway to the finish, she was greeted by applause and shouts of encouragement from the runners at the back of the pack who were running in the opposite direction. "All the women were just going crazy on the other side of the street," Born said.  "It was amazing.  They were so, so excited and cheering me on.  It was great." McGorty, who also set a personal best, wasn't surprised that Born got the win today. "I would have liked to stay with her longer, but Molly's tough," McGorty said.  "She's strong and has been having some really good workouts, so the fact that she's out there grinding by herself was not a surprise to me at all.  I'm very happy for her." Davis-Green, who finished second last year, was able to stay close to McGorty in the middle section of the race, but fell behind in the final kilometer.  She finished third in 16:04.  That mark was slower than her 15:45 last year, but was still remarkable given that the 2:28 marathoner is 12 weeks pregnant. "To run almost sub-16:00 I was really pleased with," the rain-soaked Davis-Green said.  "That was really nice." Kostarellis, who like McGorty grew up in Upstate New York, finished fourth in 16:28.  Standing at the finish line with the back of her Asics uniform splattered with mud she said, "That was brutal." The top four women earned $3000, $2500, $2000 and $1500 in prize money, respectively.  When a reporter mentioned to Born that she now had some extra money for end-of-year holiday shopping she smiled. "It will probably go to rent," she said. PHOTO: Molly Born winning the 2025 Delightful Run for Women 5K in a personal best 15:31 (photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly)

(c) 2025 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved. Published with permission. (30-May) -- When she was a student at Churchville-Chili Central High School in Upstate New York, Anna Kostarellis didn't want to be a runner.  Drawn to the soccer pitch instead, running held little attraction for her. "The running for itself was actually looked down upon, I'd say," Kostarellis told Race Results Weekly in a telephone interview yesterday from O'Hare Airport in Chicago where she was changing planes.  "I had a pretty negative idea of cross country runners.  It was sort of like those were the only people who couldn't make another sport.  That was the attitude around running in my high school." Little did she know that a missed soccer team tryout would lead to a surprising, six-year collegiate running career and eventually a pro contract with Asics.  The now 25-year-old will be taking on a classic road running double for women, competing in tomorrow's Delightful Run for Women 5K in Albany, N.Y. (formerly called the Freihofer's Run for Women), then the Mastercard New York Mini 10K in New York City a week later. "I just accidentally happened to miss tryouts for soccer that year and the only sport that took applicants any time of year was cross country," Kostarellis continued.  "I had just basically done a few local 5K's, and was given the opportunity to join the team for the rest of the season." While she discovered her talent for running, she didn't love it. "This is not the most fun I've had in sports," Kostarellis said. As a senior in 2017, she took third in the mile at the New Balance Nationals Indoors in a personal best 4:50.95, and began her collegiate career at Xavier University of Ohio in Cincinnati in the fall.  She competed well, finishing second at the Big East Cross Country Championships, 11th at the Great Lakes Regionals, and 66th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships. But like thousands of other student-athletes, Kostarellis's collegiate career was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic.  That took her on a journey from Xavier to both the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque then eventually Baylor University in Waco, Texas.  The NCAA allowed student-athletes affected by the pandemic to actively compete over a stretch of six years. "COVID happened, then the opportunity to get another year of eligibility prompted me to think that now I could... potentially get a masters degree," she said.  "That was part of my reasoning to move to New Mexico and get another degree." As a Lobo she finished 10th in the Mountain West Cross Country Championships and 144th in the special March, 2021 edition of the 2020 NCAA Cross Country Championships.  Kostarellis loved the trails and mountains of New Mexico (she resides in Albuquerque now), but overall things were not going well for her at UNM. "UNM was definitely the most adversity I've faced in running and culture behind running," Kostarellis explained.  She continued: "I don't think that any of the results (of her training) showed in New Mexico."  She continued: "I think a lot of lessons were learned." In Albuquerque Kostarellis ran much higher mileage than she had before and, of course, she was doing all of her training at altitude.  Her body pushed back. "I was running about 30 miles a week more than I ever had before, and I was doing longer workouts than I had ever done before, and I wasn't given much of a grace period to adapt to that," she said.  "I found myself pretty over-trained.  She continued: "I basically walked away injured and pretty burned out." Kostarellis took a step back from running and left collegiate athletics in 2022 after getting her MBA from New Mexico.  "I went back to New York and basically started running for fun," she said.  "For that whole spring and fall I was just training myself." But she had one year of NCAA eligibility left, and decided to go back to college so she could compete again.  She wanted to go to a Christian school and narrowed it down to Liberty University in Virginia and Baylor.  She decided on Baylor ("I fell in love with the place," she said), a school better known for developing long sprinters, and everything clicked.  She ran personal bests and school records of 15:39.16 for 5000m and 32:10.96 for 10,000m.  Her mark in the longer race qualified her for the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials, but she was unable to compete after falling on a training run and banging her knee. "That was really unfortunate," Kostarellis said.  She continued: "I tripped on a root and hit my knee on a rock.  It was not a really long injury at all, maybe a week and a half.  But the timing when it happened was, unfortunately, at the wrong place and the wrong time." But better times were ahead for Kostarellis, who was learning to love longer distances.  She got her first pro win at the 2024 Buffalo Subaru 4-Mile Chase, took seventh at the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, N.Y., finished 11th at the Falmouth Road Race, and ninth at the USATF 10K Championships at the Great Cow Harbor 10-K in Northport, N.Y. Now coached by Ryan Bolton (who coached Ryan Hall), Kostarellis has developed much greater strength and endurance.  She ran two solid half-marathons this year, a 1:11:22 personal best at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon in January and a 1:11:58 at the hilly USATF Half-Marathon Championships in Atlanta in March.  With that new-found strength, she's excited to race "over-speed" at the Delightful Run on Saturday.  She'll need to run in the 15:30 to 15:45 range to be competitive for the win. "I'm passionate about the long distances, and I really do love getting to race the halfs," she said.  She continued: "I feel like I'm in a good place with my fitness, so it's more like learning to shift gears for the 5K and 10K distances which I have raced before.  I'm looking forward to testing myself." In Albany, Kostarellis's key rivals should be Jess McGorty and Molly Born of the North Carolina-based Puma Elite Running team coached by Alistair and Amy Cragg, and Amy Davis-Green of the Hansons Brooks Original Distance Project in Michigan coached by Keith and Kevin Hanson (Davis-Green finished second last year).  Kostarellis is very familiar with McGorty who, as Jess Lawson, competed against her in high school. "It's great to see that even at such a young age we had each other to push each other," she said of McGorty.  She added: "This shows the depth of the girls in New York which is pretty amazing." But running well at the Delightful Run is only half of Kostarellis's upcoming challenge.  The Mastercard Mini 10K has a world-class field where she is only ranked 28th based on personal best.  She's excited for that kind of competition, she said, and has visualized the race venues to help her get ready.  She also knows she has to compete against the best women in order to improve. "They both go through beautiful parks," Kostarellis said of Washington Park in Albany and Central Park in New York City.  She continued: "In New York City there are high stakes and the field is very, very competitive.  When you turn pro you learn how to try to realize that you still belong in the field, even if some of them are way ahead of you, and just learn how to take things to the next level." The Delightful Run for Women will be held for the 46th time as an in-person race (there was also a virtual version in 2020), and last year's race had 2090 finishers.  The event record is 15:11.1 by Emily Chebet of Kenya in 2010 (on a different, but similar course).  Open prize money will be paid 10-deep from $3000 for the winner down to $350 for 10th place.  The masters winner will receive $1000. VIDEO STILL: Anna Kostarellis modeling her Asics kit on her Instagram page @annakostarellis