Robert Abrams, a College of New Jersey junior from Cherry Hill West, ran 4:13.19 to win the mile at the All-Atlantic Region Championships Saturday.
Abrams ran a PR 4:12.53 at Boston University last month, but this was his fastest time ever in a championship race.
Abrams won by 25 meters over Nolan Vest of Cortland, who ran 4:16.94. He broke the facility record at Nazareth College’s Golisano Training Center of 4:15.89, set by Aidan Ryan of Williams in January.
With three laps to go, Abrams led Vest by only 34-100ths of a second (2:38.29 to 2:38.95). By the time they came around with two laps to go, the lead had opened up to nearly 1 1/2 seconds, and a 31.3 seventh lap gave him a nearly 3-second lead at the gun. Abrams closed in 31.7.
Matt Molski, who ran scholastically for Sparta, set the school record of 4:09.71 in 2005. Here’s a paper Molski wrote as a Yale post-doctoral student on how “β-Peptide bundles with fluorous cores represent the essential first step in the synthesis of orthogonal protein assemblies that can sequester selectively in an interstitial membrane environment.”
Fast dude. Smart dude.
Abrams had a high school 1,600 PR of 4:24.59, which is the equivalent of a 4:26.12 full mile. So he’s run nearly 14 seconds faster in college than he did in his school. He didn’t break 4:20 until last February at Boston University and came into this winter with a PR of 4:18.97.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 