Tags
bray, Charter School of Wilmington, Harvard, Kieran Tuntivate, mile, parsons, state record, weber
4:02:21 is now the official outdoor mile record in Delaware. This mark was set on the track at St. Mark’s High School this past Saturday by recent Harvard grad and Charter School of Wilmington alum Kieran Tuntivate in a special event meant to help eclipse four-minute mile barrier for the first time on Delaware soil. Unfortunately, Tuntivate fell just short of the intended goal.
But Tuntivate wasn’t disappointed. He hopes to catch on with a professional team this fall and step up his training, with an eye toward representing Thailand in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. “It would have meant a lot,” Tuntivate said. “The one thing I’ll say is it’s gonna happen eventually. If it’s me or someone else, it’s fun to be part of the group that’s trying to get it done in Delaware.”
Tuntivate had already two sub-4 miles, including a personal-best 3:57.36 indoors in February and a 3:57.87 outdoors just a week ago, on Aug. 15 in Nashville. He knew he was in shape to do it again, and he knew it had never been done before in Delaware.
Tuntivate has been one of Delaware’s brightest stars on the college running scene lately. 
Coming on the heels of a stellar college career and early professional racing success by Newark’s CRR Sam Parsons (read about Sam’s accomplishments), the former Charter School of Wilmington sensation put up some impressive numbers while running for the Harvard Crimson. He was an All-American at Harvard, where he holds school records in the mile, 3,000 and 10,000 meters. He won five Ivy League titles, gaining national attention in 2019 after earning an Ivy 3,000 crown despite running most of the race without his left shoe.
Based on the aforementioned milestones, former Harvard runner and CRR Bruce Weber calls Tuntivate “the best Harvard distance runner ever.” He added, “I thought Kieran’s results eclipsed [those of] Adam Dixon (’82-83), who won multiple Heps championships in track and made the 1984 Olympic Trials final in the 1,500. [Tuntivate] set the American record in the 1,000 meters, and that time—2:19.8—may be the best record at the school.” Weber should know, as the 1984 grad once held both Harvard’s two-mile and 3,000m records.
The fastest mile time run in Delaware (4:01.1, by a West Virginia runner) occurred way back in 1971 at an indoor meet at the University of Delaware Fieldhouse. Notably, CRR Jim Bray, who ran for Newark High School, once held the Delaware scholastic mile record for an astonishing 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.
> See full story in News Journal (for Delaware Online subscribers)
CRR Bruce Weber and CRR Diane Kukich placed first and second overall (out of 609 runners), respectively, in terms of age grading (scoring based on one’s time relative to the world record at that distance for one’s age). Weber scored an 82.5, and Kukich was close behind with 82.3. That, folks, is what is considered “National Class” (anything in the 80s). The two have been racing consistently with results like this for several years. There was only one other racer at this event who had an age-grading score in this range.
Notably absent from last Saturday’s Turkey Trot races here in Newark was CRR Andrew Weber. That’s because he ran the Philadelphia Marathon on Sunday. The 40-year-old Weber placed 400th overall in a huge field, breaking the 3-hour mark in 2:59:44 and qualifying for the Boston Marathon in the process. Congratulations to him on a major accomplishment in his new age group.
In the Rothman Orthopedics 8K (rough metric equivalent of a five-mile race), part of the Philadelphia Marathon Weekend, 52-year-old CRR Bill Farquhar finished in 29:59, 4th in his age group and 122nd overall (out of 4,130 competitors). That’s a six-minute/mile pace for this speedy senior!
In the 10K race, coming off having run both the 
Creek Road Runners are proud to recognize one of its own, CRR Sue Barton, as a world champion!
A longtime triathlete, Barton has recently become involved in the CrossFit craze—billed as the “sport of fitness.” Competing for the team UD CrossFit, the 60-year-old Barton recently bested 635 other women worldwide in the 60-69 age group within the slightly easier “scaled” (as opposed to the “prescribed” or “Rx”) category in the CrossFit Games, held over a five-week period from October 11 to November 8 all over the world in separate CrossFit venues.
