Sarah Porter tunes up for Edinburgh with second place finish at Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in New York...

NEW YORK--In a tune up for Saturday's BUPA Great Edinburgh International Cross Country Challenge race, Western Washington grad Sarah Porter (left/photo courtesy New York Road Runners) finished second at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in New York's Central Park to bid farewell to 2011 and ring in 2012.

With about 5000 runners dashing through the city's most famous park, Porter, who now trains with the ZAP Fitness group in North Carolina, ran 21:17 to finish behind Stephanie Pezzullo, a North Carolina resident who represents Saucony.

Pezzullo took the victory, pulling away in the last mile to cross the line in 21:05.

The Running Times recap of the race is available here.

In other news, Croatia's Blanka Vlasic, the two time world champion in the high jump, has changed agents, going with Sweden's JRS Sports Management, run by Daniel Wessfeldt, who represents ex-Husky Ingvill Måkestad, Vancouver's Kara Patterson and former WSU standout Ebba Jungmark.

Vlasic leaves Austrian agent Harald Edletzberger.

Vlasic will join Jungmark and fellow Swedish high jumper Emma Green at a training camp in South Africa starting on January 9th in what from the outside appears to be an arrangement similar to Mo Farah training in Oregon with Alberto Salazar's Nike Oregon Project squad.

Here is the link to the story (in Swedish).

Speaking of training camps, former Husky Måkestad is currently in Iten, Kenya on her second stint there after spending part of November training there.

You can read her blog here.