During the IC4A Championships in Boston, Massachusetts, March 3, senior Jayden Green, one of the team’s fastest 800-meter runners, had the flu. As a result, Green couldn’t run the 4×800-meter relay.
“They had a pool of five guys and they took the fastest guy out and the next four guys still broke the record,” Head coach Mike Glavin said.
Seniors Gavin Campbell and Owen Moelter and juniors Graham Phillips and Josh Thaler broke the school record for the 4×800-meter relay.
Breaking school records is nothing new to the group. Glavin said three of the four in the group broke the outdoor school record last spring at the IC4A meet at George Mason, May 14th.
“This is what we work for, trying to set a new record of the school is what everyone strives to do, to do something nobody’s been able to do before,” Moelter said. “It’s always an awesome feeling and shows that our work has paid off.”
Moelter said the relay race allows everyone to elevate each other.
“The biggest thing is the camaraderie that comes with it. We train every day together, we do tough workouts together and all of it kind of accumulates to the relay,” Moelter said.
The result of the relay is a true testament to how the group is doing, Campbell said.
“Putting it all out there for [the team] and knowing they’re gonna do the same is kind of just what gives us confidence to go and compete at the front of races and put ourselves in a position to go and break records,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the team is already better than they were last year.
“We’ve put it together and run better,” Campbell said, “so we’re hoping that it just keeps going through the spring, just [to] put ourselves in a better position to succeed.”
Until then, Campbell said the team pushes each other to get better, with the harder practices making things easier on race day.
Even though racing is tough, Campbell said it is fun to celebrate victories and feel positive about training. He said one of his goals for this season is to “go and win A-10s in the 4×800.”
“We’ve been so close to doing [it] three or four times now since we’ve been here and winning that would be awesome. Breaking our own record outdoors it’d be cool to do again and like Owen [Moelter] said, being at Penn [relays is] the big thing we have our eyes set on,” Campbell said.
But the men’s relay team wasn’t the only ones familiar with breaking a program record during the indoor season.
Women’s senior short sprinter Sydney Rose knows the feeling. Rose broke the 20-year-old school record in the 60-meter dash at the Atlantic 10 Championship Feb. 24 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Rose said she is still feeling the excitement of it all, and, for her, trusting the process is a key motivating factor in relieving the anxiety of racing.
“Training is going to give you the results that you want, maybe not at the time that you want, but it’s going to eventually give you the results that you want,” Rose said.
Despite this being Rose’s last season, she is still focused on reaching new times during the outdoor season.
“I’m looking forward to getting a shot at breaking the 100-meter record,” Rose said.
Glavin said he predicts Rose “is going to have a magnificent outdoor season.”
“She’s so consistent that every time out, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re gonna get a good race in Sydney,” Glavin said.
