More Tales from BU Mini-Meet #3

The third and final BU mini-meet of the winter was also the most popular, with large fields for most of the events (170 entrants in the mile!). These meets are also great for inter-generational bonding, with youth, high school, college, open, and age group runners thrown together, linked only by their seed times and there interest in running a little faster this week than last.

I had plenty of time to chat, standing in the line to register for 90 minutes. Everything else about these meets is great -- the facility, the ambience, the racing -- but the registration/seeding process is stupid, and what's worse, it's the opposite or meritoctratic, punishing those who come early to register and rewarding those who come late by allowing them to cut the line if their event occurs sooner in the program sooner.

Look, BU, don't tell yourselves that we should all be grateful for the chance to run on your fast and fancy track and put up with this next year. Fix the registration process because it's the right thing to do and will substantially reduce the amount of misery in the world, or at least your small corner of Comm Ave. It will be easy -- have a table in the lobby with simple entry slips. Have everyone fill out their own entry slip: name, event(s), seed time(s). Then have them go up to the office; take their money, and hand the slips to two data entry people. That's it. Problem solved.

But on the bright side, I had the chance to chat with former Dedham high (current UML) standout Rex Radloff while we were both in line. Rex ran 4:20 in the mile, a fine time although considerably slower than his seed time of 3:59. Oh now, that wasn't Rex, that was Keith Gill -- who cut ahead of me so that he could register for, and rabbit the seeded heat of the mile. The former Brockton star, and Stonehill grad did a great job, and the fast early pace produced a great finish, with Boston's Omar Abdi inching ahead of Nate Jenkins in the final 40 meters to eke out the win. Abdi's time of 4:14.12 is one of the fastest H.S. times in the country so far this season.

There were at four Newton North alumni competing, and all of them ran the mile.

Josh Seeherman was the fastest NNHS miler of the day, running a PR 4:42.29 and celebrating by doubling in the 800 with a 2:08.77.

Scott Cole looked in good early season shape, running 4:46.83. I should know that he looked good, because I had an excellent view of his kick, which was considerably stronger than my last-lap impersonation of the robot from Lost in Space. "Danger, danger!" Also in our section was John Blouin, who earlier had run an outstanding 9:17.30 in the 3000m. That must have taken a lot out of him because he came back in 4:54.60 (ouch -- the second race hurts sometimes).

Finally, the NNHS star of the day was Jesse Chebot, who with no training to speak of except endless miles on his bike, opened a can of whup-ass on the other runners in Section 10, and ran away with the victory in a PR 5:22.96.