No matter what happens Saturday, Eddie Owens will own the rare distinction of having bookended his cross country career at a Footlocker meet.
How could that be, when most runners must endure a long season of dual meets and league championship meets before they finally get to the light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling of Footlockers?
For Owens, who needed to fill a weekend void when his soccer season ended sophomore year, his introduction to the sport was different. He jumped in the Footlocker Northeast Regional Sophomore race at Van Cortlandt Park in 2008, placed 23rd in 17:46 and was hooked. He quit the soccer team and decided right then and there to focus on running year round.
“Running tests you more than any other sport,” Owens said. “It's taught me dedication like no other sport I've played has been able to teach me.”
Owens proved a quick study. By springtime, he said he was running high 4:30s for the 1600 meters and just under 10 minutes for 3200 meters.
“I saw right away with Eddie that he had a big engine,” said his coach Jeremy Busch. “I could just tell that his VO2 max was just through the roof.”
This season, Owens has ascended further into the elite ranks of distance running. In addition to winning last week’s New York State Federation meet in the fourth fastest time ever, 15:43.9, Owens hasn’t lost since the first race of the season, which includes a win at the Manhattan Invitational.
To train, Owens faces myriad of challenges. Owens lives in Brooklyn Heights, a densely-packed neighborhood of downtown Brooklyn with narrow streets and crowded sidewalks. He splits up miles between loops around small downtown parks and trips into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. The conditions, not to mention the hard surfaces, are less than ideal for cross country.
“I have to deal with congestion, deal with traffic from cars and people on city streets,” Owens said at a practice in Cadman Plaza recently. “I’m looking forward to spending four years away from, well, all of this.”
Owens attends Packer Collegiate Institute, a prestigious and pricey private school known more for its academic prowess than athletic achievement (Owens apparently has both, as Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Duke and Dartmouth have all come knocking on his door). But Packer races in the Independent Schools League and it rarely offers him the kind of competition that exposes him to runners on the same level.
“Sometimes I wish I were running against better kids on a weekly basis,” Owens said. “Not to disrespect the Independent School League but I mean I guess we just don't have same talent that the broader public school leagues do.”
When he ventures onto the domain of bigger meet, Owens has fared well. He was 3rd in the 2000m steeplechase (6:00.28) and 11th in the 5000m (15:23.20) at New Balance Outdoor Nationals last spring.
On Saturday, Owens will face perhaps the stiffest field of competition he’s ever faced. Owens said winning is not the priority … just qualifying is. If he does, he will not have finished his cross country career in the same exact meet he began it, but that’s probably alright with him.
Eddie Owens Audio Slideshow
