The PSU Mens and Womens teams held their Blue-White, season opening warm-up meet this past week-end. In my day, we didn't have a Blue-White meet as it was so cold we all kind of turned gray (grey for you United Kingdom fans!) from frostbite whether we were blue or white. (Remember the Wolfe twins from Kane PA!). There were several good performances, but one stood out as intriguing to me. That would be the 2:23.69 1000-meter time of Ryan Foster from Tasmania, Australia. Chris Mills (an aspiring returning PSU Track Alumni Golfer!) holds the PSU record at 2:23.05. (Although records are sketchy and Malmo, official blog laureate, may be able to help us out on this one.)*
The 1000-meter, having never run it, seems to be a cruel middle-distance event. No half-miler I have ever met seemed to want to run an "extra" 200 meters. And any miler I know was always wary of the distance because it seems to favor the half-milers way too much. Stuck in the middle of two diametrically opposed factions, as it were. It is mostly an indoor event which means the turns are tighter also. I would love to hear from some of you who have run the event. (Larry, Steve, Randy, did you ever run the 1000?)
* Blog readers have responded! The PSU Record is now 2:22.42 by Sam Borchers, with second place being Matt Lincoln at 2:22.50. But we still love you Chris! (Steve Shisler puts in an effort to dethrone Malmo or at least join him as c0-laureate.)
Steve Shisler also adds to the Manley Field House lore, as his 1000-meter PR of 2:28 was set there, despite faltering in the final steps to a hard-charging Steve Balkey (although that's not how Steve put it). In addition, Steve's family shame was revealed at last. Beth (Stever) Shisler is the only All-American in the household!**
** A little birdie (with 2 new hips) tells me Randy Moore ran a sub-2:18 1000-meter after graduation while in Europe!
I'm terrible w/ dates, names, etc. So I assume the Manley Field house is Syracuse where I and Tom Gough had our 1st breakout races as Nittany Lions. I believe I did edge Shisler at the line. But the best 1000m story, AS I RECALL IT, is the year following Chris Mills Record Setting IC4A Champion 1000m time, Coach set up a strategy to win the meet which set Chris and Ray Levitre in the 800m / 500m respectively. That left me for the 1000m and DMR lead off. As it happens, I lead the 1000m end-to-end to "hold off" some charging Geo. Mason and others...in a PR time for me, yet a good 1 second slower than Mills time the previous year. I vividly remember Mr. Kleban running over to take my picture and congratulating me on my 1st and ONLY IC4A championship race. But Chris Mills put everything in perspective when he said, thank for getting 10pts. for the team, but that was a slow time, I could have run that w/ my eyes closed!
ReplyDeleteBut is the 1000 a difficult race to run? I wouldn't know, being a slow-footed distance guy.
ReplyDelete