A 13-year-old from Provo, Utah ran a mile in 4 minutes, 38.25 seconds at the Brooks PR Invitational in Renton, Washington on Saturday, smashing her own 13-year-old world record and erasing a 14-year-old age-group mark that had belonged to Mary Decker since 1973.
Angelina Alder, a seventh grader running for the Roadrunners Track Club, won the Middle School Mile in a field of 19 girls. Her time also took down the Middle School Mile National Record of 4:40.16, set by Sadie Engelhardt in 2021. It was the first time Alder had broken 4:40, and she did it by more than two and a half seconds.
Decker’s 4:40.10, run indoors more than half a century ago, has long been one of the most famous numbers in American distance running. Alder is now the new age-group record holder.
A patient start, then a sharp finishing move
The opening lap was tight. Alder sat narrowly out front through 409 meters in 1:12.11, with seven girls still in contact at the halfway mark of 2:23.02. On the third lap she began to grind. By the time the leaders hit the bell at 3:32.86, only Brianna Reilly of Harrisburg High School in South Dakota and Canadian Amelia Bazeley had stayed with her.
Then Alder shifted gears. She closed the final 400 meters in 1:05.39 and the last 800 in 2:15.24, pulling clear of the field down the homestretch. For context on how fast that is, see our breakdown of what a good mile time looks like by age and sex.
Reilly held on for second in 4:44.55, with Bazeley third in 4:45.74. Two more seventh graders rounded out the top five: Isla Rahmer of ABQ Academy in New Mexico ran 4:51.66, and Savannah Brondstetter of West Seattle Road Runners ran 4:51.99. Molly Mocko of Illinois (4:52.33), Katherine Kessi of Scappoose, Oregon (4:52.74), Aliyah Yorek of HP Distance (4:53.12), Haley Fernandez of the Elite Running Foundation (4:53.35) and Martina Rodriguez-Villen of Lakeside School (4:56.67) filled out the top 10.
A record that has been falling all year
Alder set the 12-year-old and 13-year-old mile world records earlier this year at the Carolina Distance Carnival, running 4:40.98. She turned 13 a few weeks before that race. The mark at Brooks PR is her second world record of 2026.
Her 4:38.25 was also the fastest of the three girls mile races contested at the meet. Evangeline Johnson Hess of Oregon won the Freshman Mile in 4:41.41, and Aelo Curtis of California won the Invitational Girls Mile in 4:39.11. The middle schooler ran faster than both the freshman and the invitational winners on the same afternoon.
Decker, born in 1958, set her 4:40.10 indoors as a 14-year-old in 1973 and went on to become one of the most decorated American distance runners in history. Alder, still 13, has now run faster than every girl her age who has been timed over the distance. To put her closing pace in perspective, only a small group of women in the world have ever run a sub-4:10 mile, including Faith Kipyegon, who narrowly missed the four-minute barrier at Nike’s Breaking4.
