McGregor, Carlson Winners at USA 25K

Team USA Minnesota's Katie McGregor won her sixth USA title and former Golden Gopher and Team USA Minnesota runner Andrew Carlson won this second USA crown at Saturday's USA 25K Championships held in conjunction with the Fifth/Third River Bank Run in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

McGregor out-ran USA Championship runner-up Samia Akbar by more than two-and-a-half minutes, running 1:26:24 for the distance and earning $8000 in prize money. McGregor was third overall in the women's race, finishing behind course-record-setting Firehinot Dado of Ethiopia who clocked 1:23:46 and runner-up Genoveva Kigen of Kenya.

Carlson out-legged two of his Flagstaff, Arizona training partners to win the men's race outright. He clocked 1:14:42 and earned $10,000 for the effort. MacMillan Elite training partners Brett Gotcher and Nick Arciniaga were second and third in 1:15:06 and 1:15:18, respectively.

2009 Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon champion Jason Hartmann finished fourth in 1:15:38.

For McGregor, who added a second USA 25K title to her collection honors which includes a USA 10,000-meter track title, two USA 10K road crowns, and this year's USA 15K title, the win was gratifying.

"It's always nice to get another national championship since they're not easy to come by," McGregor said in a Team USA Minnesota media release. "I've been racing on the track these past two weeks so I knew I would be a little bit tired coming into this race. It wasn't as fast as my race here in 2007 [when she ran 1:25:53] but I'm happy with it. I just wanted to have a strong race overall."

"Once I let the leaders go I was pretty much by myself the whole time," she added. "Once I knew I wouldn't win the race overall I just wanted to win the national championship. I was keeping track of my splits and based off times run here in the past, unless someone was having a great day, I was pretty sure by the half way point that I would win the championship. I just kept a consistent speed."

Carlson enjoyed leading his teammates in victory.

"This is special to go 1-2-3 with my training partners," the Fargo native said in a Running USA Wire report. "It just felt good to be out there, like we were just running a training run together until the big push got me the win."

Carlson's other USA title came at the 2008 USA 15K.