If there was a cost of admission to attend the ISU Classic, the men’s 5,000-meter race would have been well worth the expense.

Fourteen athletes had run sub-14 minutes for the 5K entering the meet, which included 11 All-Americans and runners who made the trip alone just to see where they stand at this point in the season.

The built-up hype brought out the fans to watch the two heats with many experts predicting the overall winner to come out of the first race. 

The athletes jogged up to the start, toed the line and immediately owned the attention of everyone who was at the meet.

Wisconsin’s Mohammed Ahmed came into the race being the heavy favorite, but it was a fellow teammate who unexpectedly stole the spotlight.

Senior Reed Connor of Wisconsin took first place with a time of 13:37.42. The time was just 0.31 seconds ahead of Villanova freshman Patrick Tiernan. Connor’s time broke both the Lied Recreation Athletic Center and ISU Classic records. Connor now leads the nation in the 5,000-meter.

“It was one of the most exciting races of my career,” Connor said. “I came here just wanting to run my race and I feel like I did.”

Connor came to Ames with most of his teammates competing in Fayetteville, Ark., for the Tyson Invitational. He was possibly alone in believing he could come in first in the 5K.

“I wanted to see where I stood, just wanted to improve,” Connor said of what he hoped to get out of his race at the ISU Classic.

Flotrack.org, one of the leading websites in all things collegiate and professional running, did not give Connor much of a chance to win the loaded event.

Tiernan led the bulk of the race, but it was Connor’s push at the end that allowed him to leave Ames with top honors. 

The men’s 800-meter was another event with a stacked field, but it was a Cyclone who left the meet with top honors.  Junior Edward Kemboi won the race with a time of 1:45.96, which shattered his personal record by two seconds and gave him the nation’s fastest time in the 800-meter so far this season.

“I didn’t really have a strategy or anything going into this meet. I just wanted to run fast and run my race,” Kemboi said.