Isaac Updike
After coming back from an off-season knee injury to win his first two races of the season, steeplechaser Isaac Updike of Ketchikan was slightly off his game Friday night at the Trials of Miles NYC track meet in New York City.
Updike, 30, clocked 8 minutes, 27.88 seconds – so-so, given he ran 8:22.92 in his season-opening meet record at the Penn Relays – to finish third in his specialty. He finished behind Canada’s Jean-Simon Desgagnes, who ran a personal record of 8:22.95 to win at the meet for the second straight year, and his Empire Elite Track Club teammate Travis Mahoney (8:24.89).
In the online streaming coverage, race commentator Kyle Merber, Updike’s former teammate, said Updike told him he had recently endured a setback in training. (Alaska connection: Merber, the retired American miler, in 2017 became the first man to run a sub-four-minute mile on Alaska soil when he clocked 3:59.36 at West High to win a race organized by Kodiak’s Trevor Dunbar).
Friday, Updike assumed the lead on the third lap of the 3,000-meter event after a pacer stepped aside. He ran out front until Desgagnes pulled ahead with about 1,000 meters to go and threw in a 65-second lap to take command. Updike briefly kept in contact with Desgagnes, then grinded to the finish.
Updike, who finished fifth in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials, is ramping up for the U.S. national championships in Eugene, Ore., on June 23-26. That meet will decide the Americans who advance to the World Championships in Eugene, July 14-23, provided they meet the qualifying time or place high enough in world rankings determined by World Athletics, track and field’s governing body.
Updike owns the standard for Worlds – his 8:20.17 to win the Sound Running Sunset Tour event in California last July was easily under the standard of 8:22.00. He will likely have to finish in the top three at nationals to make his first Worlds team. A runner outside the top three can still advance to Worlds if a runner who finished ahead of him does not have the world standard or a ranking high enough to qualify.
Allie Ostrander
Updike was not the only Alaskan on the wet track at Icahn Stadium. Soldotna’s Allie Ostrander paced the steeplechase for about four minutes. Her front-running in the 5K – she took the field through 3K – was metronomic. In a stretch of six laps – 2,400 meters – she paced every lap between 1:15.03 and 1:15.87.
Ostrander, a Kenai Central grad who won three NCAA steeplechase titles at Boise State and raced in the 2019 World Championships, has said she will return to racing in June in what she described as a low-key road 5K.