Last year, the Millrose Games was a momentous race for Virginia senior Gary Martin. This year, though, was not as big of a moment.
The Millrose Games is a prominent meet for professional track and field athletes in the lead up to World Indoor Championships in March. It draws many of the top international track and field athletes as well as a few key collegiate athletes, particularly those in mid-distance events, to the Armory in New York City.
Martin was once again running the Wanamaker Mile –– the marquee event of the Millrose Games for both the men and the women.
He took to the track third from the rail for the start of the race. He was in a group of six –– the second group of the waterfall start situated behind the top group, which contained Olympian Yared Nuguse, Adidas’s Hobbs Kessler and Nike’s Cam Myers.
Martin struggled to get out into a strong placement. He was somewhat boxed in between other runners, allowing a couple of others to skirt around him, forcing him into third to last place. The movement of the first waterfall group into the first lane was not an aid either, creating an opportunity for OAC’s Robert Farken to move around him as well.
For the next couple laps, Martin stayed put looking for a moment to push. With three laps remaining, he decided to push for the lead. Martin moved to the second lane, pulling around Under Armour's Festus Lagat and Farken. Martin was now in a gap between the top five runners and the three others behind him.
However, he could not pull himself up to that first group and was soon ousted from his position half a lap later by Adidas’s Nico Young. In the final lap, Lagat and Farken kicked into gear, passing Martin, who drifted back into eighth in the course of the last 100 meters.
Martin finished with a time of 3:52.62, his second-fastest time in the event. However, his time was not nearly as strong as the previous year when he broke his personal record by nearly six seconds and established a time of 3:48.82 –– then coming in at the second-fastest NCAA mile time.
This is not necessarily a bad indicator for the rest of Martin’s indoor season. Yes, it was not quite as good a result as last year’s Millrose Games, but one imperfect race does not make a season.
The entire field was somewhat slower than last year, too, with the winning time being Cam Myers’ 3:47.57 rather than Yared Nuguse’s 3:46.63 from 2025.
Still, the results were probably not what Martin was hoping for from this race.
Outside of Martin, there were two former Virginia runners at Millrose –– Shane Cohen and Margot Appleton. Cohen joined Nike last year, but has continued to pursue a master’s in public policy at Virginia and is with the varsity team as a Student Assistant Coach. Appleton graduated last year and has gone on to join New Balance.
Cohen, like Martin, had a fine race, but did not end up coming close to or breaking his personal record. Cohen ran the 800-meter race in 1:49.87, finishing in sixth in a field of six.
Appleton, though, had a very good day, finishing sixth in the Wanamaker Mile out of eleven and clocking in with a new personal record of 4:22.94 just ahead of New Balance teammate Emma Mackay.
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