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Tag Archives: parsons

Parsons conquers Mile Challenge

10 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by deshon in Kudos, News, Race Results, Stories

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bray, Delaware, fischer, mile, parsons, state record, Tinman Elite, track and field

The Delaware Mile Challenge was a unique event, to be sure, on the recently renovated track at The Tatnall School. On Saturday evening, April 9, runners of all ages took to the track to challenge the mile distance. Well after dark, the excitement had built to a crescendo, as the elite men and women took to the oval to compete.

photo of a victorious Sam Parsons
A victorious Sam Parsons is all smiles after clocking the first sub-4 mile in Delaware.

“Homefield” advantage theoretically should have meant nothing, as among the field of 13 elite men there were four runners who had already broken the 4-minute-mile barrier at least once. One of those competitors, however, was CRR Sam Parsons (son of CRR George Parsons and CRR Christina Parsons), who grew up in Newark and ran track and cross country for Tatnall during his high school years.

It appeared early on in the men’s elite feature race that Parsons, who trains with Colorado-based Tinman Elite, was ready for the challenge. Through the initial lap, he was in good position in fourth. Moving up, he took over third during the second lap, staying close to a 60-seconds-per-lap pace while battling with three professional runners from Baltimore’s Under Armour club—two in front of him and one right behind him.

By the back stretch of the final lap, Parsons had moved up and positioned himself right behind the race leader, Casey Comber. With just a half lap to go, both were right around 3:30, setting up what would be a frenetic sprint finish.

With the volume increasing to a roar from the hundreds who lined the track to cheer him on, Parsons out-sprinted Comber on the final straightaway and, in doing so, eclipsed the 4-minute mark—the first time this had been done on Delaware soil. Parsons clocked in at 3:58.17; Comber finished just 0.27 seconds behind, also going sub-4. The previous best mile run in Delaware had been run 50 years ago, indoors, at 4:01.1.

photo of Sam Parson addressing the crowd
Sam Parsons addresses the crowd after his historic win.

While not taking a victory lap, Parsons did take the mic to thank the crowd for helping to make The Delaware Mile Challenge such an energy-filled and memorable event. He also thanked his high school coach, Pat Castagno, who is Tatnall’s track-and-field and cross-country coach and whose own coach while at the University of Delaware was Delaware’s legendary CRR Jim Fischer, who presented the master’s mile race during the event.

By winning the elite race, Parsons bagged $2,500 in prize money. By breaking the 4-minute mark, he also walked (or maybe ran?) away with a $500 bonus, making it a very satisfying (and profitable) trip home!

The elite women’s winner, Molly Sughroue, of the Colorado Springs Track Club, ran away with the race, a new in-Delaware women’s record, and the same prize money.

Collectively, Creek Road Runners congratulate one of our own. Way to go, Sam!

Of local note is the fact that CRR Jim Bray, a Newark High School alum, once held the Delaware high school mile record for 28 years before it was broken in 1999.

The world record in the mile is still a mind-boggling 3:43.13, set by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj in 1999.

The quest for the 4-minute mile in Delaware

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by deshon in Upcoming Events

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Kieran Tuntivate, mile, parsons, Tatnall School

The Delaware Mile Challenge

On the evening of Saturday, April 9, elite milers will gather along with others who like the challenge of an open track mile for a set of races at the Tatnall School track. The four-minute mile barrier has never been broken in Delaware, though there have been at least two young Delawarean men who have achieved that feat recently, although not on First State soil. The fastest mile ever clocked in Delaware was a 4:01.1, way back in 1972.

photo of Sam Parsons making eye contact with an Ethiopian competitor

First and foremost, CRR Sam Parsons, the Newark native and Tatnall alum who has eclipsed the mark a couple times within the past few years, will be ready to give it a go. Since his successful collegiate career at NC State, Parsons has been training professionally with Tinman Elite out of Boulder, Colo., and has had some success at middle distances representing Germany (his mother, CRR Christina Parsons, is German-born) internationally. His fastest (non-track) mile is 3:55.00.

News Journal photo of Kieran Tuntivate

Then there’s Kieran Tuntivate, a Charter School of Wilmington grad who recently completed his college running at Harvard, who will join Parsons to try to smash through the barrier in his home state. Tuntivate has recently been running internationally for Thailand, from where his father hails. His fastest outdoor mile is 3:57.87. Former Harvard runner and CRR Bruce Weber calls Tuntivate “the best Harvard distance runner ever.”

There will be a few other entrants who’ve also broken four minutes in the mile.

The event, which is open to all, is being organized by University of Delaware running alum Pat Castagno, who is Tatnall’s track and field coach.

The schedule will be as follows:

5:00 p.m. – middle school boys and girls
5:15 p.m – community mile for kids 11-and-under, who may be accompanied by parents
5:30 p.m – high school girls mile
6:15 p.m – high school boys mile
7:00 p.m. – open mile, for those 18 to 39 or others not on high school team rosters
7:20 p.m. – women 40-and-over
7:40 p.m. – men 40-and-over
8:20 p.m. – elite women
8:40 p.m. – elite men

Race registration for non-high school runners is $10 per runner by April 7 and includes a race shirt. Admission cost for spectators is $5.

Delaware Crimson?

15 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by deshon in Stories

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Tags

avila, Bowerman Track Club, Charter School of Wilmington, Harvard, NC State, parsons, Tatnall School, Tinman Elite, tuntivate, weber

photo of Sam Parsons with Harvard runners

Last month, CRR Sam Parsons ventured to Cambridge, Mass., and hooked up with the Harvard University men’s running team. So, why was the Newark native and Tatnall School and NC State grad with the Crimson? Well, it probably had something to do with Harvard’s recent (and not-so-recent) Delaware connection.

In the above photo (submitted by CRR George Parsons, Sam’s dad), Parsons is kneeling, front and center in the gray hat and bright red shirt. Behind him and to his left, sans shirt, is Andrew Avila, a Harvard sophomore from Newark, who ran for the Charter School of Wilmington.

Parsons, a professional runner with Boulder, Colo.–based Tinman Elite, knows former Harvard runner and Charter School of Wilmington standout Kieran Tuntivate (not in the photo), who now runs for the Bowerman Track Club in Portland, Ore. No doubt Parsons and Tuntivate had kept in touch while Tuntivate was running for the Crimson.

photo of Bruce Weber
1984 photo of Harvard runners

CRR Bruce Weber, a Harvard alumnus and local ambassador for the school, helped Tuntivate familiarlize himself with Harvard and its running program several years ago as he was making up his mind where to do his college running. Weber submitted his own archival tribute to the Crimson runners of yore, of whom he was a key player when he was an undergrad. In this photo from 1984, Weber, who is Dean of the Lerner School of Business at the University of Delaware, is second from the right.

Nice Blue Hen synergy, eh?

An Olympic postscript

10 Tuesday Aug 2021

Posted by deshon in News, Stories

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Tags

olympics, parsons, robinson, rose

The 2020 pandemic Olympic Games came to a close on August 8, 2021. Now we can look forward to the 2024 games in just three years!

For many, the extra year of training and preparation for these games was a hindrance; for others, it was a blessing in disguise. There were certainly a lot of surprises along the way. It seems the rest of the world is catching up with the USA in many sports.

In particular, the men’s track and field team, with a few notable exceptions, did not have the broad success that most of us expected. The USA women’s T&F team performed better, relative to their competition.

Champion gymnast Simone Biles brought a stark new awareness of the mental aspect of this level of competition, dropping out of the gymnastics team competition and a few of her individual-specialty apparatus events due to her unreadiness mentally.

photo of Sam Parsons making eye contact with an Ethiopian competitor
CRR Sam Parsons competed in the World Championships in Doha in 2019.

How difficult, both physically and mentally, it is just to get to the Olympic stage was highlighted in a pre-Olympics article in the New York Times, which focused on this subject and featured CRR Sam Parsons.

Parsons, who trains with Colo.-based Tinman Elite and was competing for a spot on the German national team in the 5,000m (his mother CRR Christina Parsons is German), had been battling a nagging injury leading up to the German trials. Unfortunately, with little more than a lap left in his quest to qualify, he had to pull out of the race—his Olympic dream deferred.

The good news, father CRR George Parsons tell us, is that his son is recovering well physically and is staying positive, despite the disappointment.

> See New York Times article

Another almost-made-it was Michaela Meyer, who won the NCAAs this year but finished fourth at the Olympic trials. Meyer was a former UD student of CRR Bill Rose.

Yes, the world does seem to be catching up to the USA in many respects. Could this be the natural evolution of globalism, or is there something behind this?

photo of Matt Robinson
CRR Matt Robinson

We’d like to think that the efforts of (self-proclaimed Creek Road Runners CEO) CRR Matt Robinson are making a difference for other nations that may not have the coaching expertise that we enjoy in this country. He literally coaches Olympic coaches.

This effort is funded by the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Solidarity Fund, which designates money generated from Olympic broadcast rights to sport development and education programs around the world.

In the runup to the Olympic Games this summer, Robinson was interviewed by a University of Delaware UDaily reporter for the following article.

> Read “Going for Gold”

Parsons heats up in Olympic quest

20 Thursday May 2021

Posted by deshon in News, Race Results

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Tags

5K, olympics, parsons, Tinman Elite

photo of Sam Parsons in CRR sweatshirt

CRR Sam Parsons, son of CRR George Parsons and CRR Christina Parsons, is ramping up his training in an attempt to make the German national team for the 2021 Summer Olympics. His mom is German, so Sam, who also speaks fluent German, can compete for her home country. The key, however, is qualifying, which gets tougher every four years.

Recently, Parsons clocked in at 13:23.3 in the 5,000m race at the American Track League/Sound Running track meet in California, just a second off of his PR, set in 2019. Qualifying for the Olympics is based on the best of either a qualifying standard—at this distance, 13:13.5—or on a points basis (performances gain “points”). In the case of this latest meet, Parsons earned 1156 points—1126 “performance points” based on his finishing time and an additional 30 “place points” for his 4th place finish in the race. As a result, his average increased to 1138 points, ranking him 40th in the world at the 5K distance.

Parsons, who trains and runs for Boulder, Colo.–based Tinman Elite, will compete at the German Nationals on June 5. Creek Road Runners is proud of its international running superstar, a Newark native, and wishes him sehr Glück.

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