Professional Runners Ready to Roll at St. Anthony's Track

Image credit: Foon Fu

Local runners are set to toe the line at a meet that’s looking to have elite athletes race to break the Long Island mile record.

Don’t worry, the really fast people will be in separate heats.

A sub-four minute mile is an impressive athletic feat that has even been the inspiration for a few movies.

The fastest mile ever run on Long Island was a time of 3 minutes and 53.39 seconds by Moroccan athlete Noureddine Morceli in 1998.

After about 17 years, Dix Hills native and professional runner Kyle Merber decided he wanted to change the running history of Long Island.

He organized, and will run in, the Hoka One One Long Island Mile, a mile race at St. Anthony’s High School track for runners of all ability levels, including elite men and women.

Merber, whose personal best in the mile is 3:54.7, answered a Q&A for Patch that can be found at the bottom of the article. He talks about this race, his running history and his favorite places to run on Long Island.

Preceding the main event, there will be open mile races for kids (age 10 and under), a local open championship race and a local masters championship race. Anyone interested in running in theHoka One One Long Island Mile can sign up here.

Merber organized the meet with help from Brendan Barrett, co-owner of Smithtown Running Company. “We haven’t had pros of this caliber racing on Long Island before,” Barret told Patch.

Racers can expect race t-shirts, a chance to win prize money, running vendors at the meet and more.

The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at St. Anthony’s High School Track, located at 275 Wolf Hill Road in Huntington Station, on Wednesday. The elite races are expected to go off at 8:30 p.m.

Merber shared the field for the elite races on twitter:

In case readers aren’t well-versed in the realm of running, Merber answered a few questions about his running career, his hopes for the Long Island Mile and his favorite places to run on Long Island for Patch in a Q&A:

Q&A with Hoka One One sponsored athlete Kyle Merber:

• Patch: Tell us about yourself
• Merber: I was born and raised on Long Island. Originally from West Hempstead, NY, but I moved to Dix Hills in elementary school where I would graduate from Half Hollow Hills West in 2008. By the time I graduated high school I had won 3 state championships, the Millrose Mile, and an indoor national title in the mile. For college, I attended Columbia University as a philosophy major, and by the time I graduated I had run 3:58 for the mile and 3:35 for 1500m, which is the American Collegiate Record. After a successful first year with the New Jersey*New York Track Club, I was picked up by my now sponsor, Hoka One One and continue to chase the dream as a professional runner.
• Patch: Tell us more about your running career
• Merber: My mile personal best is from July 2014 in Dublin, Ireland from the Morton Games in which I ran a 3:54.7 mile. My personal best for 1500m is 3:34.5 which converts to a 3:51 (the 1500 is run more frequently than the mile). I have the fastest 1500 from a native-Long Islander, but John Gregorek who was a two-time Olympian and graduate from St Anthony’s HS had run 3:51.
• Patch: How many times have you broken four minutes in the mile and when was the first time you did it?
• Merber: I have broken 4 minutes for the mile on 7 occasions, with my first being as a sophomore in college at the Armory’s Indoor track in NY. At the time it was the Ivy League record, but what made it the most special was getting a chance to do it at our home track with so many friends and family in attendance. Winning the race also didn’t hurt!
• Patch: Where are your favorite places to run on Long Island?
• Merber: My favorite place to run on Long Island is at Belmont Lake State Park. It’s actually just 5 minutes away from my house, but I never ran there until after graduating from college. I say it’s the easiest place to get 10 miles in possible. And Sunken Meadow and I have a very complicated love/hate relationship. Those are some serious hills!
• Patch: Can you explain what the atmosphere of an elite track meet is like? Are there any similar meets or events in the area like the Long Island Mile?
• Merber: It’s the first year of the Hoka One One Long Island Mile so we can’t say exactly what the atmosphere will be like, but we are aiming for a very fan-friendly meet in which it will be possible to connect on a more intimate level with the professional athletes. There will be race introductions, programs with background information and bios, and fans will be allowed right on the track (in the outside lanes) during the race. Then afterwards there will be an opportunity for autographs, and to jog a few laps with those who just finished. The aim is for casual fans to attend the event and leave having a better understanding of not only the sport, but who some of the best athletes in the world are. I competed at the Sir Walter Miler in Raleigh, NC in the beginning of August, and their atmosphere was very much like this. We are hoping to reproduce something very similar here in our own backyard.
• Patch: Why did you decide to hold this meet?
• Merber: The goal is to have the pace set up so that the Long Island record of 3:53 could be in reach if the athletes are feeling good with a lap to go. It’s definitely a fast time, and a big goal, but I think it’s realistic if everything goes right. There will be a few athletes who have a mile personal best faster than 3:53, and a number of which who have run a faster 1500 equivalent. I think at the very least we have to give the fans a sub-4 minute mile on the men’s side and sub-4:30 on the women’s. Anything more than that would be incredible!
• Patch: Do you think the fastest mile on Long Island will be run at this meet? Will most of the elite competitors have faster mile times than the record?
• Merber: The single thing I am most excited for is the opportunity for young fans and new fans to get an up close and personal look at the highest level of the sport. We strongly believe that the grassroots movement in track and field is the key to connecting with the high school athletes and hopefully they walk away from the event inspired. If we can motivate Long Island’s runners to train harder, race faster, and believe that they can make it to the next level themselves, than we will have accomplished our goal in our first year. There is some special magic to witnessing a sub-4 minute mile, and we hope that it rubs off on some of the spectators.