The Cavaliers kicked off the indoor track season with a pair of meets this week — the Boston University Sharon-Colyear Danville Opener and the Liberty Kick-Off. The majority of the team stayed in Virginia, but a small contingent of distance runners traveled up north to Boston. This meet has become particularly known for its distance competition — last year the men’s NCAA 3k record fell, and this year the NCAA and collegiate women’s 5k record was smashed.
The undisputed highlight of the meet was senior Gary Martin’s 25-second personal record in the men’s 5k. Martin already held the Virginia record in this event prior to the race, with his previous time sitting at 13:30.69 — a little over a second faster than Class of 2024 alumnus Yasin Sado’s No. 2 time. Now, there are no Virginia 5k times that even come close to his new record of 13:05.57.
Still, the race did not go as smoothly as Martin might have wished. Martin’s start was clean, but he got slightly bogged down as the other runners completing a waterfall start entered the first two lanes of the track.
A waterfall start means that around half of the runners are pulled into the outer lanes of the track ahead of the rest of the group. This half then goes a certain distance in the outer lanes before they are allowed to flow back into the first lane. This is usually done in longer distance races because there are too many runners to put together on the starting curve, which otherwise would create a higher likelihood of tripping and prevent a neat start.
After the start, Martin was mostly able to recover and spent the majority of the race tucked behind New Mexico’s junior Habtom Samuel, who is the reigning men’s NCAA champion in cross country. In the last two laps of the race, Martin made his move, overtaking Samuel with 300 meters to go. Martin was clearly fighting fatigue and had to lap other runners ahead of him, interfering with his forward motion as he had to dodge one runner attempting to move out of his way and and get around another.
As Martin entered the last 50 meters of the race, Samuel and Villanova senior Marco Langon pushed in next to him on either side as they gave a final kick. Martin was not able to keep up, and, in the last few meters, it became a photo finish with Langon and Samuel. Samuel just barely edged out the win, and Martin ended in third.
The rest of the distance squad was also busy running a terrifying number of laps around the 200 meter track. Senior Nate Mountain also ran the 5k and placed 34th in a field of nearly 200 runners over the course of several heats. He finished with a time of 13:44.75.
Junior Tatum David raced in the 3,000 meters and claimed a personal best of 9:16.09, placing 19th, good for Virginia’s No. 4 best performance. Junior Gillian Bushée also made her way into the top 10 performances for the 3k, clocking in at No. 9 with her time of 19:19.59.
Heading south to Lynchburg, Va., the sprint and field athletes were occupied this week with the Liberty Kick-Off. For the first meet of the season, it was a good warm-up and showcased some strong performances particularly by some of the new freshmen.
In her first collegiate meet, freshman Cassie Callis had the second highest freshman program finish in the pentathlon, with a score of 3609 points. In the pentathlon, junior Elsa Spoor claimed the Virginia women’s No. 7 best performance with her score of 3732 points. She won both high jump and the 800 meter dash.
In the men’s heptathlon and in his collegiate debut, freshman Garrett McNeil took the Virginia all-time No. 4 spot, placing particularly well in first in the men’s 1k section.
Continuing the freshmen’s strong placement was Hannah Byrd-Leitner, claiming the Virginia No. 5 freshman performance. She placed third overall with her vault of 3.90 meters and was the top finisher for Virginia.
A number of Virginia women won their events, including senior Sarah Akpan in the 200 meters in 24.32 seconds, junior Brooke’lyn Drakeford in the 400 meter dash in 55.96 seconds and senior Amelia Maughan ran 2:13.84 in the 800 meters.
On the men’s side, senior Evans White IV won the 400 meter dash in 48.16 seconds and senior Peter Djan nabbed a first place finish in the 60 meter hurdles in 7.92.
Overall, these two meets point to a promising start for Virginia. The already-strong freshman performances indicate good development in pole vault and in multi-part events like the heptathlon and pentathlon –– two areas which have not consistently been the Cavaliers’ strongest events.
Martin’s performance, too, shows a clear development in his ability to run longer distance events on the indoor track and still place as high as he might in some of the events like the mile.
The Cavaliers will take a break from competing until their indoor season resumes Jan. 16 at the Virginia Tech Invitational.
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