The 2024 Black Bear Invitational featured a boys' 3,200 meters that was absolutely insane, yet ho-hum for the duo responsible for the craziness
Some runners won't eat unless they've logged some recent miles. I'll gladly eat my own ass off anytime, but I refuse to watch others race unless I've run that day
Yesterday, the 2024 Black Bear Invitational was held at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy in the wilds of southeastern New Hampshire. The consensus marquee matchup was senior Byron Grevious of Phillips Exeter Academy versus junior Tamrat Gavenas of Phillips Academy in the boys’ 3,200 meters. Grevious was 12th at the 2023 Nike Cross Nationals last fall, while Gavenas claimed third at the 2023 Foot Locker Nationals. In their previous matchups in track and cross-country, Gavenas has gotten close to Grevious but to my knowledge never beat him.
Before yesterday, only one high-school runner had ever broken nine minutes for 3,200 meters within New Hampshire’s short borders. In fact, when Coe-Brown’s Aidan Cox knocked out an 8:57.63 at last spring’s 2023 New Hampshire Division II State Championships, he became only the third public-school runner in Granite State history to run under nine minutes for 3,200 meters (or the equivalent for two miles) anywhere.
Grevious is a Connecticut native who attends a prestigious prep school in Exeter, New Hampshire, while the Ethiopian-born Gavenas is a New York City kid whose family moved to North Andover, Massachusetts during “the pandemic” after their son was accepted by Phillips Academy, a prestigious prep school in that town. Nevertheless, the elusive meet director of the Black Bear Invitational attracting two of the top high-school distance runners in the country to a New Hampshire meet primarily dedicated to public-school competition was a fine score.
Heading into the meet, neither Grevious nor Gavenas had broken nine minutes for 3,200 meters (or the two-mile equivalent, 9:03.13) outdoors. But Grevious ran 8:51.00 for two miles as a junior in March 2023 to place sixth at the 2023 New Balance Nationals Indoor, equivalent to 8:47.92 for 3,200 meters, while Gavenas’ indoor 3,000-meter time of 8:14.94 from January at Boston University converts to 8:51.42 for 3,200 meters. Given favorable weather—which the runners got yesterday—there was little question that spectators would be treated to a sub-nine-minute chase by multiple athletes, with keen, greedy observers secretly screaming about the possibility of at least one sub-8:50.
I decided to watch the New Hampshire Track and Field-produced stream on the site’s YouTube channel in real time, which in Boulder, Colorado featured drizzly rain and temps in the high 30s promised to last all day. Knowing at 9 a.m. that it would be pointless to wait until even after sundown for dry weather and strongly desiring some sort of run sent me out the door for 30 splashy minutes that Rosie wanted no part of. Like a genial dipshit, I wore a hoodie like I used to when running as Vermont college student over thirty years ago in far wetter, colder weather, also as a genial dipshit. As an added perk, these kinds of runs must be done at an easy clip and therefore never entail any added discomfort between the one-minute mark, when every item of exposed clothing has already become saturated, and the point at which either voluntary cessation or hypothermia is observed.
Some runners are reluctant to eat anything of substance unless they've logged some miles that day. I'll gladly eat my ass off anytime and with little apparent provocation, but one thing I’ve noticed more and more over the years is needing to get in at least an easy run before watching others compete on a screen. And the shittier the weather, the more compelling this drive becomes.
Part of this is rooted in an admittedly baseless desire to earn my viewing privileges through experiencing a trivial level of related discomfort. But almost all forms of entertainment are better immediately after a run, especially when the entertainment relates to running. To a runner, a workout before watching a track meet is like a few bong hits for an allegedly disaffected 1980s teenager before another viewing of The Wall.
The 3,200-meter races at Black Bear Invite are held at the beginning of the meet, and the boys’ version begins just after the 20:00 park in the meet video.
That’s all you’re getting from me other than a link to the results and New Hampshire Track and Field’s recap of the meet. I’ve become more concerned lately with targeting revisionist historians and their suppression of the real handed-down origins of one of the most revered concepts in all of modern science, the ten-percent rule.
