When Anthony Calantoni crossed the finish line at New York City’s 5th Avenue Mile on Sunday, he was shocked to say the least. He entered the race with low expectations but managed to win his heat in a brisk 4:14—the top time of the morning before the semi-professional and professional fields in the afternoon.
Calantoni’s buildup for the race was everything you’re not supposed to do. After racing a road mile in May at the Easton Twilight Criterium, the 27-year-old told himself that he was going to buckle down and go all-in on training to run a fast time at 5th Ave.
Then summer happened.
Calantoni splits his time as business analyst at a local health network and as an assistant track and cross-country coach at his alma mater, Muhlenberg College. But he also does some landscaping on the side, cutting grass when he’s got some free time. That leaves little room for training, especially when his energy is sapped from the summer heat. Calantoni soon realized that to somehow make it all work, he’d have to put his training on the back burner and run whenever he could fit it in.
That turned out to be pretty sporadically. Calantoni, who boasts college PRs of 3:53.21 for 1500 meters (converts to a 4:11.87 mile) and 1:52.85 for 800 meters, ran around 15 to 20 miles a week throughout the summer. He rarely did workouts, but his mileage was fast—lots of short runs at 5:45 pace. He only did one track work in his “buildup” (three 200-meter reps at 27 seconds), so he wasn’t expecting anything groundbreaking heading into 5th Ave.
But during the race, something clicked. After the starting gun, Calantoni quickly moved up to the front pack of the field, coming through 400 meters around 60 seconds and cresting a slight hill at 800 meters in around 2:07. Thanks to the energy of the crowd and scenery along Central Park, Calantoni said the race felt like it was over in an instant. “When you’re running down a street like 5th Avenue, it kind of flies by,” he said. “The scenery kind of makes everything fly by and before you know it, you don’t even realize you’re at the quarter mile … It’s a different experience racing on the road.”
Before he knew it, he was barreling down the last quarter mile stretch, crossing the line three seconds ahead of the runner-up, with his former Muhlenberg teammate, Corey Mullins, not far behind. “I was kind of expecting closer to 4:20-something or in the 4:20s,” Calantoni said. “I said, worst case scenario, 4:30, but came out with 4:14 and was super excited with that.”
That left him with the top time of the day so far, but after the NYRR road mile championship heats were canceled at the last minute because of inclement weather, he ended up with the top non-professional time of the entire race. (The men’s professional field in the afternoon saw 18 runners dip under 4:00.)
Last year, the runners in the championship heats finished in a range of 4:00.2 to 4:27.6, so Calantoni’s time as the quickest amateur likely would’ve been short lived had the heats not been scrapped. But he thinks he’s ready for that section next year. “[I] could definitely get drug along to a faster time and really compete in that group,” he said.
Calantoni credits part of his success with a speedy shoe. He’s a regular shoe tester for Runner’s World, often testing the newest super shoes on the market, including the Salomon S/LAB Phantasm 2, Skechers Speed Beast, and Brooks Hyperion Max recently. But for Sunday, Calantoni chose the only shoe he’s given a perfect rating to: the Asics MetaSpeed Sky+.
“[The Asics] just feel like the most smooth shoe,” he said. “You don’t feel like you’re wearing a huge clunky piece of foam on the bottom of your feet. You get the spring without ever having to think about it.”
Despite the promising result at the mile distance, the next big race on Calantoni’s calendar is a step up in distance. A 25-mile step, to be more precise. He’ll line up for the St. Luke’s D&L Marathon in November, which sets off in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He’s hoping for a Boston Marathon qualifier along with Mullins, although he admits the distance will require a shift in mindset (and probably training).
“It’ll be a different experience—quite a swing from a mile to a marathon,” Calantoni said with a laugh.
Theo Kahler is the news editor at Runner’s World. He’s a former all-conference collegiate runner at Winthrop University, and he received his master’s degree in liberal arts studies from Wake Forest University, where he was a member of one of the top distance-running teams in the NCAA. Kahler has reported on the ground at major events such as the Paris Olympics, U.S. Olympic Trials, New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon. He’s run 14:20 in the 5K, 1:05:36 in the half marathon, and enjoys spotting tracks from the sky on airplanes. (Look for colorful ovals around football fields.)
