A kind of summer school paid off for a long-distance runner. Jacob Heuver decided to extend his training with the Okotoks Track and Cross-Country Club into July and the result was a bronze medal in the 15-and-under boys 2,000m at the Alberta Summer Games in Grande Prairie last month. “Throughout the year we were training three times a week and then in the summer before the Summer Games we were doing it once a week,” Heuver said. “They (coaches Richard Ellum and Mark Toombs) really helped me a lot.” Heuver qualified for the Zone 2 team by running a 6:56 at a meet in Medicine Hat. He knew he had to improve on that in Grande Prairie. However, things got of to a bad start. “At the start I was at the very back, I kind of got tripped up a little bit at the start,” Heuver said. “But I knew what pace I could go so I kept going at that pace, even though lots of the other people were going much faster … I was worried because I wasn’t sure if those guys could keep up that pace.” But slow and steady wins the race, or at least gets you on the podium. Heuver estimated he was in seventh place at the 1,000m mark. He was tired, but the adrenaline was going. “I was tired, but I knew I could keep going — it’s hard to explain,” Heuver said. “I was confident. With our running group we do a lot of pacing. I knew I could hold the right pace, and once you get to the past 400m, it is about ‘do you really want to win?’” Heuver was sitting just one spot out of a medal when he hit the bell lap — 400m to go. “My main goal was to pass the guy who was in third and then put some distance between us,” he said. “I was about two or three seconds behind him.” He was able to pass his opponent in the last 300m of the race. “I was glad I had passed him,” he said. “When I crossed the finish line, I was kind of surprised. I thought top five would be amazing. When I got third, I never expected it.” His time was 6:36.88 — a personal best by nearly 20 seconds. Heuver said he prefers the longer runs. “I’m not very fast at the shorter stuff, and less people run the longer distances,” Heuver said. Heuver will be a Grade 10 student at Foothills Composite High School in the fall and plans to run cross-country on the Falcons team — along with fellow OTCC member Rosie Bouchard. Heuver proved to be a jack-of-all-trades at the Summer Games. He threw the shot put for Zone 2 as it had a roster spot open. He did not medal in the shot put, but finished in the top 10.
