Kingsway graduate Sam Allen placed 3rd in the 20,000-meter racewalk Saturday morning at the USATF National Championships in Eugene, Ore.
Allen covered 50 laps on the Hayward Field track in 1:31:58.72, an average of 7:25 per mile for the 12.4-mile race.
Allen’s matched his previous-best finish at a national championship meet. He was 3rd over 20,000 meters last February at the USATF 20-kilometer (road course) World Team Trials in El Cajon, Calif.
Allen, 21, finished only 27 seconds behind 2nd-place Emmanuel Corvera, who crossed the line in 1:31.31.53. Nick Christie won the race in 1:25.30.31. Allen recently finished his junior year at Cornell.
Allen will represent the U.S. in the NACAC Under-23 Championships July 21-23 in San Juan, Costa Rica.
For most of the first half of the race, Allen was in 6th place, but over the final 10,000 he settled into a pack with Jordan Crawford and Jason Cherng, and those three remained together in 3rd, 4th and 5th until the final lap, when Allen closed with a 1:40.23 – the fastest single lap any of the competitors other than Christie recorded – to edge Crawford and Cherng.
Allen wound up finishing about five seconds ahead of Crawford and six seconds ahead of Cherng.
Allen was the youngest qualifier for the race. Crawford and Cherng are both 23.
Allen recorded his 20,000 PR of 90:43.43 at the World Trials in El Cajon.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 