On Saturday, September 4th Trevor competed in his first real 20km race ever in Tuusula, Finland. The race was held on a track and it was the Nordic Championships. Coach Tim gave Trevor a goal of breaking 1:26 but Trevor decided that that would not be good enough for him. Trevor started off very conservatively in 4:25 for the 1st kilometer. He went through the first 5km's in 21:22 in the perfect conditions of 10 degrees celcius. He continued to feel good but was still being careful going through the 2nd 5km's in 21:12 (42:44 for 1st 10km's). He then decided to put the hammer down and dropped the pace considerably. His 5km split between 10-15km's was 20:32. This is when TEAM friend Andreas Gustafsson called Coach Tim at just past 2am PST to tell him that he was under B standard pace. He told Coach Tim that he would call him back in 20mins and tell him how he finished up. Unbelievably, Trevor did a ridiculous 20:33 last 5km's to finish up the 20,000m in 1:23:49 (41:05 last 10km and PR by 45seconds). This is not only a huge PR for Trevor (by 8 minutes) but its also an American Jr. Record by over 18 minutes!!!! To put his performance even more into perspective, Trevor is now only 9 seconds off of Coach Tim's American 20,000m Record! This time has put shockwaves around the world. Everyone is so impressed with his performance and he is only 17, 3 weeks shy of his 18th birthday. This time is a B standard for the World Championships next year, however, it will not count because there were not enough IAAF judges for it to count. We all know that Trevor will be more than capable of doing this time again next year or better to officially qualify him for the World T&F Championships in Korea in September next year. Trevor will now stay in Europe for a few months to take in some European culture and train with some Italian racewalkers. We all look forward to some great things for him next year.
Stay tuned!
TEAM
