@$:BODY-FRANK:A year after setting his lifetime best for the mile on the same course, Lamont Marshall returned to the streets of New York to repeat the feat last Sunday.BODY-FRANK-2:This time the 24-year-old shaved two-tenths of a second from his 2007 mark in the prestigious Fifth Avenue Mile and moved up one finishing place into the bargain as he stopped the clock at four minutes 15.3 seconds.Of the five runners ahead of him, four were New York-based athletes who originally hailed from Kenya and Ethiopia.It was a satisfying performance for Marshall on a day of racing in the city, which featured a number of names familiar to road running fans in Bermuda.Southampton's Otis Robinson repeated his 2007 performance in one of the open races, breaking the five-minute mile barrier again, although five seconds adrift of his time a year ago as he paid for an over-exuberant first quarter to end up with a time of 4.55.In the Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile professional men's race, American Jon Rankin, who finished second in this year's Front Street Mile during International Race Weekend, was forth in a time of 3.52.7, while former Front Street Mile champion James Thie of Wales returned from injury to take ninth place in 4.57 exactly.The winner of the professional race was New Zealand's Nick Willis in 3.50.5, one-tenth of a second ahead of American Bernard Lagat.Bermuda's Marshall again found himself in the second tier New York Road Runners Mile Championship event and was up against a formidable African foursome representing Westchester Track Club in a race that had ten finishers.The quality of the athletes he was up against was brought home by Marshall's father Larry Marshall Sr. who spoke with runner-up Worku Beyi (who ran 4.07) and discovered he had personal bests for the 5K of 13.57 and half-marathon of 1.03.Beyi's clubmate, Kenyan Abraham Ng'Etich, showed a clean pair of heels to all his rivals as he stormed to a winning time of 4.02.Marshall, who retained his Labour Day Five Mile Race title earlier this month, was happy to have set a new personal best even if it was by the slimmest of margins.He said: "It was marginal, but I'll take it, and I moved up from seventh last year to sixth. The first quarter was very fast, the others took it out fast and then it settled down and I just tried to maintain my pace."He went through the 1,500m marker in 4.01, dashing the final 100 metres in around 14 seconds as he went head-to-head with New York's Jason Ostenson in a repeat of 2007, crossing the line with the same time but Marshall getting the verdict by a whisker.Marshall intends to be back in action this Sunday as part of a three-man team in the Bank of Bermuda Triathlon where he will be competing in the three-mile run. After that he has two weeks to ready himself for the Heroes to Hero 5K in New Jersey, where he expects to find himself back on the start line with a number of his Fifth Avenue Mile rivals.In the open mile race Otis Robinson was seventh in the 30-34 age group. His fast start cost him towards the end as he ran 4.55."I could not hold the reins back and got sucked out by this short guy who was in my age group," said Robinson. He went through the first quarter mile in 55 seconds and eased up slightly but still flew through 800m in 2.05, from then on it was a matter of diminishing pace but in the final 200m he pushed hard to ensure he was comfortably under five minutes.Afterwards Robinson was able to chat to professional race winners Wills and Lagot.He said: "I paid for my exuberant start. I was a little annoyed by that as I had thought I'd run around 4.40 but in the second half of the race I lost a considerable amount of time."But he put the race into perspective, coming as it did only a few weeks after his Rock and Roll Half Marathon outing in Virginia where he ran 1.22."I'm happy that my speed is superior to last year," he said. He is now looking towards another half marathon, this time in Texas in November.Another familiar face in the New York races was 'honourary' Bermudian runner Sid Howard, who won the 65-69 category in 5.50. Howard has run International Race Weekend and the Bermuda May 24 Derby almost annually since the late 1970s. Despite being an off-Islander, the American was given an official race number of the May 24 event in 2007 to mark his status as a 'honourary' Bermuda athlete. He was not able to run in this year's race because of an injury.