Aziza Aliyu
Ethiopia
Age: 23

A member of the Westchester Track Club, Aliyu is a Bronx resident from Ethiopia who keeps getting faster. She set her personal record for 10K (32:43) in winning the 2008 Riker Danzig Newport 10,000, and she set a women’s event record of 32:56 at the 2008 NYRR Joe Kleinerman 10K. She has won her most recent five NYRR races.

Kelly Jaske
Unites States
Age: 32

Running in one of her first professional races, Jaske took second place behind Olympian Magdalena Lewy Boulet at the 2009 USA Half-Marathon Championships in Houston. She has a law degree from Harvard and did not run competitively in high school or college; she started jogging to prepare for a backpacking trip. She now runs under the tutelage of top distance coach Brad Hudson.

René Kalmer
South Africa
Age: 28

Kalmer is a frequent winner of major races in her native South Africa; she is the national champion at both 1500 and 5000 meters. She made the 2008 South African Olympic team at 1500 meters and ran 4:08.71 to finish seventh in her first-round heat in Beijing. Kalmer has run 2:03.51 for 800 meters and 1:11:56 for the half-marathon. This will be her Mini debut.

Yuri Kano
Japan
Age: 30

A graduate of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Kano is a marathon and half-marathon specialist with PRs of 2:24:27 and 1:08:57. She has three top-10 Mini finishes to her credit and has placed fourth, fourth, and third in the most recent three NYC Half-Marathons. Kano’s recent road PR of 32:12 bodes well for a run at the podium in this year’s Mini.

Ashu Kasim
Ethiopia
Age: 24

Kasim has been on a hot streak this year, with a personal best in the half-marathon at Ras Al Khaimah (1:10:05) and a first-rate debut marathon in Paris (2:25:49). Her 10K split of 32:30 on the way to the half-marathon makes her look capable of contending for the win here. She ran 15:53 for sixth place at the Freihofer’s Run for Women 5K on May 30.

Deena Kastor
United States
Age: 36

Kastor is one of the greatest American distance runners of all time. The national marathon record-holder at 2:19:36, she qualified for her third U.S. Olympic team by winning the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Women’s Marathon; she was forced to drop out of the Beijing Olympic Marathon with a broken bone in her foot. She was third in last year’s Mini; she won the 2004 Mini in 31:44 just before the 2004 Olympic Games, where she made U.S. running history by taking the bronze medal in the marathon. She also ran the 10,000 meters in the 2000 Olympic Games. Kastor won the 2005 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon and the 2006 Flora London Marathon. Kastor trains with the Mammoth Track Club under coach Terrance Mahon.

Rose Kosgei
Kenya
Age: 28

Kosgei went on a tear in 2008, winning four races and making the podium three more times, with high-quality performances at distances from one mile (4:23.9) to 12K (40:47). This year she dropped two minutes and 40 seconds from her half-marathon PR with a 1:09:03 victory in Prague. She placed third at the 2008 Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile.

Salome Kosgei
Kenya
Age: 28

Kosgei (no relation to Rose Kosgei, above) relocated from Kenya to the United States in 2004 to attend Iona College on a track scholarship and eventually set seven Iona school records, from one mile to 10,000 meters. The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s most outstanding female runner of 2006, she now runs for the Westchester Track Club and has already made the podium at seven professional races this year.

Magdalena Lewy Boulet
United States
Age: 35

A native of Poland who became a U.S. citizen in 2001, Lewy Boulet was the runner-up at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials – Women’s Marathon. In the Olympic marathon in Beijing, she was forced to drop out before halfway with a severely bruised knee. Lewy Boulet has competed in the Mini four times (2003, ’04, ’06, and ’08). She is the 2009 USA Half-Marathon champion.

Alemtsehay Misganaw
Ethiopia
Age: 28

Ethiopian native Misganaw has developed into one of the best athletes in the Northeast and a consistent performer in races around the country. She has won the New Bedford (MA) Half-Marathon three times, and she ran a half-marathon PR of 1:12:48 at the 2007 Philadelphia Distance Run. She won this year’s Homecoming Scotland Run 10K in Central Park.

Catherine Ndereba
Kenya
Age: 36

Known as “Catherine the Great,” Ndereba was the first woman to crack the 2:19 marathon barrier, in 2001. In 2003, she became the first African woman to win the World Championships Marathon, and she followed that with silver-medal marathon performances in the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens and the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. She reclaimed her World Championships marathon title in 2007. Last year in Beijing, she took her second Olympic silver. A four-time champion of the Boston Marathon and a two-time winner of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, Ndereba has also won the NYC Half-Marathon twice, in 2006 and 2008. Ndereba has an incredible all-time career record of 122 professional race victories on all surfaces (road, track, and cross country). Although this includes 36 wins in 10K road-races, in three tries she has yet to win the NYRR New York Mini 10K.

Stephanie Rothstein
United States
Age: 25

Rothstein is a 2006 graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara, where in her senior year she won the Big West cross country, 10,000-meter, and 5000-meter titles, placed eighth in the 10,000 meters at the NCAA Championships, and was the Big West Conference Athlete of the Year. She is a member of the New York Athletic Club and is coached by Brad Hudson.

Amy Rudolph
United States
Age: 35

Although Rudolph has been among the country’s best for more than a decade—she set an American record for 5K at age 22, in 1996—it wasn’t until 2006 that she won her first national title, at 10,000 meters. A two-time Olympian, she won eight state high school championships in Pennsylvania and never lost a dual-meet race. She graduated from Providence College and is married to the Irish Olympian Mark Carroll.

Sara Slattery
United States
Age: 27

Slattery was a two-time NCAA champion at the University of Colorado, and helped the Buffalos to two NCAA Cross Country Championship team titles. She was also the 2007 Pan American Games 10,000-meter gold medalist. Slattery won the 2005 Emerald Nuts Midnight Run Four-Mile in Central Park. She is married to Steve Slattery, a two-time World Championships steeplechaser.