Molly Klein boasts the fastest time of any returning female runner from New Mexico, but it you limit it to in-state performances at altitude, Jessie Hix takes top honors. Photos by Alan Versaw.
It's easy to like what you see when you look at a list of New Mexico's top 20 returning runners. Clearly, the season that gets underway in serious fashion this weekend holds a lot to look forward to. There are no less than 11 returning runners who dropped below 19 minutes for 5K last fall.
Los Alamos has the best representation on the top 20 list with five, but Santa Teresa has three, while Valencia and La Cueva each have two.
Perhaps the most interesting questions, however, concern how to rank the top four of Molly Klein, Jessie Hix, Arena Lewis, and Carisma Lovato. Jessie Hix owns a relatively clean record in head-to-heads and near head-to-heads (same meet, same course, same day, but not the same race) against both Klein and Lovato, but Lewis has had Hix's number a little ...