Nike Oregon Project's Mary Cain, the 17-year-old teenage sensation from New York, came just .01 from an indoor World Junior mile record at the John Thomas Terrier Classic at Boston University Friday night.
Cain won the race with a personal-best clocking of 4 minutes, 24.11 seconds, breaking her own national high school mark by more than four seconds. She was just shy of the World Junior record of 4:24.10 by Ethiopia's Kalkidan Gezahegne in 2013. Her time ranks as the seventh fastest by a U.S. runner, including the American record of 4:20.5 by Mary (Decker) Slaney in 1982. Finishing second in the race was Oregon’s Jordan Hasay in 4:25.31. Hometown favorite Abby D’Agostino of Dartmouth was third in 4:28.39.
Cain, holder of seven national high school records, was close to the pace of Slaney's record run. With a pair of rabbits leading for the first 1,200, Hasay and Cain nestled in third and fourth, respectively, in the early stages. Hasay was a few strides ahead of Cain at 400, passed in 65 seconds. She extended that advantage with a 2:10.5 at the 800 and 2:42.5 at the 1,000, a half a second ahead of Slaney’s record run.
With the standing-room only crowd cheering her on, Cain bolted past Hasay around 1,300 meters and built that lead considerably by the finish line where she came agonizingly close to Gezahegne’s record. Cain’s previous best for the mile was 4:28.25 at the Millrose Games last February.
