Joe Franlin took his time and paced himself, as the elite field in the high school seeded division of the Boys 3200m at the FSU Relays thinned out. And then he dropped the hammer big time, picked his way through the pack, and then blew the doors off on the last lap. He finished with a 9:15 over Connor Revord. So much for the theory the Florida state meet 1600 meter record holder is only an 800-1600 guy. Franklin has always worked to show his versatility and break out of anyone who would pigeon hole his talent into one event.
Going into the race, reportedly Franklin was reluctant to even run the event. But at the insistance of his coach and his father he entered anyway instead of focusing on the mile! Glad he did so we get a chance to see this gem of a race!
Full Race Video (By Nick Karmanos)
Complete Results & Coverage - Teams from FL, GA, AL, NJ, TN, CO Competed
Boys 3200 Meter Race Summary
Okay, to give you an idea how deep this field was as far as Florida boys go: out of the top three boys in each of the four classifications at the state cross country meet last fall, this race had 9/12 of them including all four state champions. How cool is that? On top of that it also had Connor Revord, who faded out of the top three in the state mee, but on a different day might have just as likely been state champ. Those Florida boys were joined by some all-star out of state talent from five states. What a race!
It was a wild ride of frequent lead and order changes and a strong pack until the very end when it finally thinned out. Eric Larson (Pensacola Washington) took the pack through the first lap in 71 seconds, until Brian Atkinson (Melbourne) took over soon there after. Atkinson then agressively lead for the next mile. He lead the huge pack through consecutive laps of 70, 69, 71 (4:41 mile), and 72. Throughout this time the huge pack shuffled around behind Atkinson with Guillermo Echarte (Belen Jesuit), Larson, Connor Revord (Tampa Jesuit), Michael Wallace (Bishop Kenny), Joe Bosshard (Crested Butte, Colorado), Kyle Cooke (Holy Trinity), Richard Blake (Berkeley Prep), and a host of others fighting for the other top positions. During this part of the race Joseph Franklin (Godby) sat comfortably back in the pack, occupying some where around 7th position the entire time.
On lap six, Bosshard surges and passes Atkinson taking over the lead with Cooke and Echarte hanging on for second and third. Atkinson (perhaps worn out a bit from leading for a mile) gets swallowed by the pack a little bit, but holds his ground as Bosshard leads them through a relatively slow 74 second lap. If you pay attention toward the back of the front pack, Franklin has started to pick his way through and move up. He finds himself around third place when Cooke surges to the front. Atkinson is back around fifth place and stumbles a bit, while Bosshard gets swallowed back up into the pack. Cooke picks up the pace on this one and leads until almost the bell, but just before the angel gets its wings ("every time a bell rings..." get it??) Blake decides it's go time and kicks it into another gear. He kind of threw down the gauntlet here and challenged anyone to follow.
For the most part, only two dared take his challenge: Franklin and Revord. I would tend to make it my policy not to challenge a 1:50/4:08 runner to a kickers race, specifically when that runner's name is Joe Franklin and he has been sitting patiently back in the pack the whole race, but Blake sure showed some guts in doing so! Blake held on to that lead for about 200 meters before Franklin closed and then opened up a can of look out I'm coming through. In the final 200 meters, Joe took that lead and got some space and kept extending his lead all the way to the line. Meanwhile, Revord tried to match with a kick of his own. It eventually paid off as he caught and passed Blake in the last 50 meters.
Franklin finished with a meet record and state leading time of 9:15.18. Revord and Blake followed closely behind with times of 9:17.41 and 9:18.03. All in all there were 8 athletes under 9:30, 12 under 9:40, and 18 under 10:00. Quote a race!!!
Now I bet you want to Watch the Full Race Video!!!