![\"Will](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/leer-willis.jpg\" "\\"Will")
<\/a>Will Leer and Nick Willis with Brendon Bethke<\/p><\/div>\n
Cooks Classic, Cooks Gardens \u2013 27 January 2012
\nNick Willis had to bow to the strong front running tactics of American training companion Will Leer in the anniversary mile on Friday evening. Willis came from behind over the final 300m to finish second in 3m 58.81s, Leer winning in 3m 58.45s.<\/p>\n
The anniversary mile celebrated Sir Peter Snell\u2019s world mile record run at Cooks Gardens 50 years ago to the day when on a grass track he reduced the record to 3m 54.4s.<\/p>\n
Willis said that he was happy with his first race of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt pretty good; it was a case of first race jitters, afraid of tying up too much. I didn\u2019t win but still very happy with the first race effort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand 1500m record holder said the Peter Snell would have felt a lot better in his race in 1962. \u201cHe was powering along on the last lap, I was just hanging in there to the end. It was great to be able to commemorate such a fantastic effort 50 years ago.”<\/p>\n
Hamish Carson of Wellington third in 3m 59.11s and Canterbury\u2019s Malcolm Hicks fifth in 3m 59.87s both joined the exclusive sub-four minute mile club. Carson is the thirty fifth Kiwi to join and Hicks number 36 with his effort. Carson said it was a relief to finally crack the barrier. \u201cI\u2019ve finally got a sub-four. I just wanted to beat Nick down the home straight but he still passed me, at least I got the sub-four,\u201d said Carson.Hicks was equally delighted to enter the record books. \u201cI was pumped to just squeeze under,\u201d he said. Lee Emanuel of Britain was fourth in 3m 59.69s.<\/p>\n
Ben Moynahan led in fellow Aucklander John Schreuder in the junior mile in 4m 20.64s while Camille Buscomb of Hamilton won the women\u2019s mile in 4m 53.93s.<\/p>\n
Billy Crayford of North Harbour cleared 2.09m in the high jump while Elizabeth Lamb of Waitakere was over the bar at 1.83m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\ufeff Cooks Classic, Cooks Gardens \u2013 27 January 2012 Nick Willis had to bow to the strong front running tactics of American training companion Will Leer in the anniversary mile on Friday evening. Willis came from behind over the final 300m to finish second in 3m 58.81s, Leer winning in 3m 58.45s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1,14,294],"tags":[278,295,297,34,478,296],"class_list":["post-497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-track","category-usa","tag-278","tag-cooks-classic","tag-mile","tag-nick-willis","tag-track","tag-will-leer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/leer-willis.jpg?fit=590%2C250&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}