Mac shines at Don Wright

The Marauders track season is in full swing, and after two meets under their belt, they have already managed to throw down some impressive times.

The team traveled to the Don Wright invitational in London, and started off quickly with the 60 m dash, where Latisha Rhooms finished fourth overall in the finals with a time of 8.06.

In the men’s 60 m dash, last year’s CIS 300 m bronze medalist Scott Hutchinson also finished fourth overall with a time of 7.12.

In the men’s 1000 m race, Jeff Tweedle prevailed as the winner, running to an impressive time of 2:31, which is a personal best time for the second year engineering student.

Not too far behind Tweedle was first year Patrick Deane, who finished third overall with a time of 2:33.

In fifth place was Eric Barry, who finished the race right beside Deane, with a time of 2:33.

In the 1500 m race, women’s captain Chelsea Mackinnon ran an impressive first race of the season, finishing in third place overall with a time of 4:45.

Close behind Mackinnon was Raquel Burgess, who ran to a personal best time of 4:48 which was good enough for sixth place overall.

In the men’s 1500 m, the most impressive race was from Taylor Forbes, who won the race with a time of 3:59 - close to his personal best time, which he ran at the OUA meet in late February last year.

Forbes and teammate Connor Darlington were initially given the task of pacing his brother and teammates, but after feeling good for the majority of the race, Forbes decided to keep running and aim to break the grueling four-minute barrier in the middle-distance race.

“Just before reaching three laps to go I took a look back and realized they weren’t following pace anymore and I wasn’t feeling tired, and I was having a lot of fun being out on the track. I knew I could run under four if I wanted to, so I just said why not?” said Forbes.

Although his race in the 1500 m was great, Forbes has decided to shift his concentration to the 3000 m race, where he will attempt to run to a personal best time.

“I want to run as close to 8:20 for the 3000m as I possibly can, I would be happy with running 8:25 or faster this season,” said Forbes.

Forbes has decided to use the indoor-racing season as training for his triathlon season - which is his main event and passion.

“I’m not focusing solely on track but more towards the bigger picture which is my summer triathlon season,” added Forbes.

Three other Marauders finished closely after Taylor Forbes, with twin brother Austen Forbes finishing in third place with a time of 4:03, Jordan Bierema finishing in fourth place with a time of 4:04, and Luke Charbonneau finishing in fifth place with a time of 4:07.

In the 3000 m women’s race, grad student Kierstin Myers came in fourth place overall with a time of 10:30.

The team will now look forward to the McGill Invitational meet — the biggest meet of the season this coming weekend in Montreal, where they will be pushed to even faster times in a more competitive field.