Sam Burgess is coming into the cross nation marketing campaign with a wait-and-see strategy to the early-season meets, however the scary expertise out of Framingham is set to be in prime situation for the championship competitors come November.
Burgess developed tendinitis in his ankle in April shortly after he captured the B.A.A. Scholastic Mile marathon weekend. It endured by way of the spring season, however hardly slowed him. Burgess put up some nice performances, capturing the Div. 1 2-mile title in 9:19.23 after which staging a stirring homestretch duel with Nathan Lopez of St. John’s Prep to complete a robust second at All-States in 9:11.99.
Burgess has used the summer time months to come back again slowly, working two days and taking one off. It’s a far cry from the 65-to-70-mile weeks of a 12 months in the past, however he’s pleased with the progress and the joy of feeling himself getting stronger with each exercise. Still, coping with a nagging harm is irritating for any athlete and Burgess is not any totally different.
“I want to get healthy for the championship season,” he mentioned. “It’s great to be making progress, but this (summer) is usually when I’m putting in high mileage.”
Framingham head coach Ed Crowley believes Burgess is doing all the best issues to get again into race form and isn’t even taking a look at him presumably being on the beginning traces in September.
“He’s taking it one week at a time and doing his physical therapy,” mentioned Crowley. “He’s doing his best to listen to his body and hoping to put it all together. A running injury is always around the corner for everybody. It never happens at a good time.”
Burgess moved to an elite stage final fall and wound up capturing the distinguished Gatorade Massachusetts Cross Country Runner of the Year Award.
Burgess kicked off his season with a stable 15:39 win over the hilly Derryfield Park course in New Hampshire’s Manchester Invitational in muddy circumstances. Burgess had a really memorable November and early December. The scrappy harrier ran a shocking time of 15:05.8 within the Div. 1A race to interrupt former Arlington nice Ryan Oosting’s Wrentham Developmental Center 3.1-mile course file. That time lasted till Uxbridge’s Aidan Ross lowered it to an eye-popping 14:47.11 for the Div. 3 All-State title only a week later. Burgess was the category of the sphere in Div. 1, capturing the gold medal.
Burgess was impressed by Ross’s race and believes he might have gone beneath quarter-hour if he was in the identical race. “It was a little disappointing not being in that race, but you have to be happy for Aidan,” he mentioned.
Burgess believes his general power can put on out the competitors and is an enormous key to his success. “I feel like I’m more of a strength runner than speed,” he mentioned. “I can run a lot of miles. In races I feel like I can push hard from further out. I don’t tend to get caught up in the moment.”
In one of the best form of his life, Burgess headed to the Bronx per week later for the Eastbay Northeast Regional Cross Country Championships at Van Cortlandt Park. Up in opposition to a deep, primed area, Burgess bulled his means into the highest 10 and pushed arduous down the ultimate straightway to stamp his ticket to the nationwide championships at Balboa Park in San Diego. Burgess didn’t have a fantastic day, however he definitely didn’t blow up as he took twenty ninth in a really respectable 15:56.40.
Framingham had certainly one of its finest seasons in historical past final fall and has a robust contingent coming again. “Sam was fun to watch run and see the process of being able to dictate the pace in races,” mentioned Crowley. “His success spilled over and that helped the whole team.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com