Not Willing To Run With The Pack Breaks Lauer's Way To Title
Will Lauer had a plan heading into the 5,000-meter run at Friday's New Balance Nationals.
He erased that from his memory not too long after the smoke cleared the starter's pistol.
The senior from Sioux Falls, South Dakota took the pace out hard from the beginning and gradually pulled away to a convincing victory, breaking the tape with a big-time personal best of 14 minutes, 35.71 seconds.
"I kind of just wanted to see how it was going to shape out because there was a huge pack," said Laurer, making reference to the combined first and second heats due to a two-hour weather delay. "I was not going to push it. That is kind of the pace we were shooting for and training. It just felt comfortable running it."
Lauer strung together a string of low 2:50s at each 1K checkpoint. He held a comfortable 50-meter cushion by the time he reached the halfway mark.
Lauer often took a glance over his shoulder the last mile, but the pack never could play catch-up despite a strong last lap by the next few finishers. Placing second was Fordham Prep (NY) senior Conor Lundy at 14:40.61. Brien McMahon (CT) junior Eric van der Els was third in 14:41.05. Eight runners broke 15 minutes.
Lauer was more than 30 second under his previous best of 15:07, which he did to win the Nike Cross Regional Heartland title back in the fall. He'll be attending Stanford University along with Darien (CT) standout Alex Ostberg, the defending champion in the event.
Ostberg had to scratch from the competition due to a leg injury.
"I was kind of looking forward to running with him," Lauer said. "A couple of weeks ago I found out he was injured. It would have been fun."