TYson Wieland: Welcome to Race Chats with Blaze. This is your host, Tyson Wheeland, and we are excited to kick off another season of podcast. While there might not be a ton of these, we're hoping to maybe do some post-race, but this is going to be one of probably two or three that come before the race. Next one is of course gonna be our chat with Lance Bergessen, where we preview the event. This one is all about what happened in 2025. Before we dive into that, we do want to thank our sponsors, Beyond Recovery Massage, Fleet Fee, and of course our host. Runablaze Iowa. Without them, this would not be possible. And without further ado, let's jump right in. All right, so before we dive into the results, I did want to make one quick note. So just like in years past, we did have the 5k plus the mile. There was no longer a mile race in 2026. We did put our focus on in the 5K, but I did want to note we had that combined race that was going on. And then a new thing in 2025 was that we did put the elite females with the open 5K race to give a little bit more depth to that field. Our focus is still on the elites, but we did want to give a few more bodies out there so that when you know, maybe there weren't pacers at the exact pace that some of these ladies were looking for, they did have some company with the open racers and I think it went pretty well. We are continuing that tradition. And without further ado, let's go into the women's elite race. So the women's elite race. Much like in 2024, it was the Cassie Parker show. she was able to break 16 again, running 1556. This was not a record, but it maybe wasn't a record day out there. but she was pursued by by Kaylee Byer, who came in second with the 1636. just to note, Cassie Parker is with Crown Running. they had both the men's and the women's winner. but Kaylee Byer is from Minnesota's Disney's Elite. So we're we're we were excited to get someone to come down. you know, it's a tough weekend with Twin Cities to get anyone to come down for the Blazing 5K, because that is kind of one of the events that MDEE focuses on. But as I mentioned, Kaylee Bayer, second place, 1636. And then in third place, we did have Rita Moore, 1702. Rita comes from Kansas. historically, the last two years, we've had both her. And her husband, Adam, who was the winner in the previous year. but yeah, just a quick little nugget there. And then in fourth place, it was Runablaze Iowa zone Pasca Chariot, who ran 1713. And then to round out the top five, we had Nikki Borner finishing in seven twenty seventeen twenty-three. Overall, we were able to have nine women break that 18-minute barrier, with You know, a few of them just over that mark. You know, we had Melanie Hamlet, Kaya Richmond, and Elise Wheeland just over that 18-minute mark with our full elite field finishing under 19 minutes. So pretty impressive. we were really excited to see a few of them double back and do the mile as well. so we had Cassie Parker going with a combined time with this is with the 5k and the mile. She had a combined time of 2052 and then Kaylee Bayer came in second in that combined with a 2137. And then Rita Moore, we had in 2217 as our third place combined. But as far as the individual mile went for the women, it was Cassie 455 with a hot on her heels, Kaylee Bayer finishing in five flat. And Sarah Bacula actually finished in third for the women's mile, 5'10. So she was able to really turn up the heat when it came to the mile. That's kind of a quick recap of our women's elite race. Now we're going on to the men. All right, so on to the men's elite race. This is an exciting one. For the second time in history, we had a sub-14 minute. As I mentioned, Crown Running was able to win both the men and women. And they're represented by Reed Buchanan, who is out of Kansas, and he has been on a tear. He's actually now running for Kansas City Smoke, but at the time he was running for Crown Running, and he was able to again kind of break away early, much like Cassie running 1354. We did have a very fast time from Gable Sieberda in second, though. He is an Iowa State assistant coach. He ran 1412. He is part of Fitness Sports Distance Project. And then in third place, it was Jake Gillam, who ran 1429. He comes to us from Illinois State, where he's an assistant coach there. And then Crown was actually able to get fourth place as well, with Mason Taupe representing, running 1440. And then in fifth place, Noah Rasmussen, who has been a winner here before, he ran 1447 and he comes to us all the way from Oregon, where he is part of the Bowerman Track Club. just to note, we did have Blake Whalen in sixth place, who has been in the top five plenty of years and will surely factor in this year's edition of the race, but he ran 1447 just barely behind Noah. So he was almost able to, you know, get that fifth place or under. Position once again. we did have David Fassbender and Dre Freyberger going under 15. So we had a total of eight men breaking that 15-minute barrier. But that wasn't just it. We had a ton of guys coming in in that 15-minute range, including, you know, an Austin O'Brien who's coming back from injury, who ran 15-11. we had a Ian Kaske, who just barely missed his master's record ranning running 15-29. a plethora of runablaze iowa runners like don't don agisha tyson wheeland myself rather and we had a total of 16 people break 16 minutes in the 5k in those that did the double so coming out on top was rebuchan he had a combined time of 1809 with Jake Gillam coming in second running 1853 and then Mason Taupe was in third and I think 1912. To get that done, these guys had to run 414, is what Reed ran in the mile. Jake was just behind him running 423. And then Mason Taupe was in third in the mile, running 432. So pretty impressive times. you know, we did have, it looks like eight guys under that five-minute mark, even with most of them doing the double. So as always, pretty impressive. And that is the men's elite quick highlight. And that is it for this podcast. As I mentioned, this is just going to be a quick one, touching base with you guys and kind of giving a little bit of a recap what happened in 2025. Our next podcast will be with Lance Burgessen. That is our preview podcast we do every year. Lance has been around the scene for a long time, and we kind of get to dive into who we think are going to be in the top five men and women, and maybe some surprises we've seen in the past and what races we think have been maybe the most historic. and so That should be a fun one. Make sure to listen to that. If you aren't signed up, there is still time to get signed up for the Blazing 5K. See you Sunday.