Man among boys

You’ve probably never heard of Stephen Chantry. And, if you were at last Friday’s Gotham Cup at the Armory, it’s a safe bet you did not notice him running in the slowest section of the men’s mile in the afternoon.

But rest assured, you should know about Steve Chantry and you should pay attention to his tremendous accomplishments on the track.

I first got to know Steve, a 1972 graduate of Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappingers Falls, several years ago when I wrote an article about him in the Poughkeepsie Journal. Steve has a masters running resume a mile long (pun intended), and that long-ago story was highlighting one of his many top U.S. masters finishes on the track.

Fast forward a bunch of years to the fall of 2011. A very youthful looking 57-year-old guy jogged up to me at Van Cortlandt Park and introduced himself. He was the dad of a cross country runner at our MAAC rival school, Manhattan College. Yup, you guessed it, it was Steve Chantry. His son is a freshman distance runner for the Jaspers (side note #1: The younger Chantry ran an impressive 3km PR later that night at the Armory Friday!; side note #2: We can forgive the older Chantry for cheering on the Jaspers when we see him at meets!).

Anyway, although Steve went to high school locally, he now lives in Virginia. When I had done the story on him, I interviewed him over the phone and via email. It was nice to meet him in person. Turns out he is still running, and still running as strong as ever.

So it was kind of neat to see this 57-year-old guy, literally a man among boys, getting ready to line up with a bunch of college kids more than half his age – heck, some of them are close to a third of his age!

Steve ran 4:49.36. It is the third time he has broken 4:50 for the full mile indoors. He is one of only three men over the age of 55 to have broken 4:50 for the mile indoors (more details on that below). Think about that for a moment. Let that sink in. That’s a pretty impressive accomplishment.

And, he ran a negative split race, including a monster last lap. Check out his splits here:

35.9, 73.2 (37.3), 1:49.8 (36.6), 2:26.0 (36.2), 3:01.4 (35.4), 3:38.6 (37.2), 4:15.5 (36.9), 4:49.36 (33.86!)

For those of you that live locally and/or read my running column online in the Poughkeepsie Journal, I will be writing about Steve Chantry’s masters running exploits in my Thursday column in an upcoming edition. Here’s a sneak preview of one of the things Steve had to say about his masters running in general and his Armory race in specific:

“Often younger runners or even the general public don't understand the significance of the times run by older runners. Currently, I am one of only three runners over the age of 55 who have ever run sub 4:50 for an indoor mile (I have now done it 3 times). Alston Brown did it once when he set the world record with a time of 4:49.54 and Nolan Shaheed has done it three times with spectacular times of 4:47, 4:45 and a 4:42.89 (the current world record). These two individuals are now in their early 60s and still running fast. Nolan Shaheed is the only over 60 runner who has broken 5 minutes (I paced him to that world record at Cornell two years ago when he ran 4:57.06). As masters runners continue to ‘age up,’ they are getting faster and faster and I suspect that there will be a group of others coming out of the 50-54 age group and into the 55-59 age group that will be toppling my accomplishments. But even then, I am going to keep going after faster and faster times.’’

Amen, brother.

Steve Chantry is an inspiration to all of us middle-aged (and beyond) runners who feel the inexorable march of time. Hopefully, he is an inspiration to college-age kids, who can witness first-hand that their competitive days can continue for decades after they graduate, if they so choose.