Wednesday, May 19, 1965 University Daily Kansan
Page
Slow Pace Prompts Lawson to Record Run
(Photo by Glen k...ps)
John Lawson
By Glen Phillips (Sports Editor)
"I had planned on running with the group and seeing how it felt. They seemed pretty slow. I decided to take the lead and I felt so good that I just opened up."
That is how Johnny Lawson describes the seventh lap of the three-mile race last weekend in the Big Eight track championships at Lincoln. Lawson went on to win the race and to set the only new mark for Saturday's event.
The blond junior ground out the 12 laps in 14 minutes, 9.6 seconds, eclipsing the former mark of 14:21.0 set by his former teammate, Paul Acevedo, in 1963.
"I WANTED to run the race under 14:20 because that is the qualifying time for the NCAA national track meet," Lawson said. "It never dawned on me while I was running that I would break the record . . . I just wanted to win."
Lawson said his teammates were at the finish line calling off the times to him as he came around the track. "They also told me that McCubbins (Oklahma State) was moving up on me," Lawson recalled.
"I wasn't too worried about him, though." Lawson continued. "I thought I could still 'out-kick' him because he had been working hard to catch up with me." But Lawson didn't have to worry because he finished a full 30 yards ahead of the Cowboy challenger.
THE RACE this weekend was the first single three-mile race Lawson had run this year. In Abilene in a dual meet, he ran a 14:55 three-mile race but it was after he had completed the best mile of his career, a 4:09.
For the Big Eight meet, coach Easton had scheduled him for the mile and the three-mile again. At a meeting of the squad before the
meet, captain Herald Hadley suggested that Lawson be allowed to run in only the three-mile. "I felt the three-mile was my best event and that I could win it," Lawson said.
Lawson said he likes to run the mile, too, but that he does not have the speed necessary to be a consistent winner in the event. However, he is working in his practice sessions to help the situation.
"I practice twice a day," Lawson said. "In the morning I work on straightaways and sprinting. In the afternoon, I work with the distance and the sprinting. . . . I really think the work on the sprinting has helped my time in the mile and will continue to help it."
LAWSON IS NOW working for the week he will spend in California in early June. He will run in the National Track and Field Federation track meet at Bakersfield on June 11-12. The next weekend he will run in the NCAA track meet at Berkeley.
Next fall, he will be running cross country on the Jayhawk squad. He predicts a good season for the team and hopes they will take national honors. "We stand a good chance of winning national. We have good freshmen moving up and we are only losing Hadley and Bill Silverberg. We'll have lots of depth."
Because he runs in both track and cross country. Lawson maintains an active training program throughout the year. He will be running in
Indy Tire Crisis Over
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. —(UPI)— The big tire crisis appeared over today for pole-sitter A. J. Foyt and seven other drivers who qualified for the May 31 500-mile auto race on Goodyear tires.
J. A. Loulan, manager of Goodyear's racing tire development program, said Tuesday that "problems which developed in practice Monday were being corrected and added flatly that "we are not pulling out of the race."
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While in Kansas City, he runs on the streets and he often goes to the City Park and runs around the hills there. He explained that members of the team often go out together and run in the country. "We split into two groups and the last group is always chasing the first bunch. Sometimes we take a ball and play keep-away. You are running hard all the time but the fun takes your mind off the work," he said.
meets until the middle of June. But, he will keep in shape even after he has returned to his home in Kansas City.
(Complete summer schedules now available.)
"I RUN ABOUT three days a week during July," Lawson said. "A trackman can get stale if he keeps on working all the time, so I try to relax some during that month. In August I go back to practicing twice a day preparing for the cross country meets in September."
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