On Sunday, February 24, 2019
By MADELINE BOST, 973-584-9302
COLLIN FROST OF RANDOLPH IS ONE SPEEDY GUY
You have to wonder if this man can be beat. Not in New Jersey so it seems. When Collin Frost of Randolph toed the
starting line in New Jersey in 2018 he was always the man to beat. Those who tried, failed. Frost posted his fastest time at the 5K
distance at the Roxbury Community Benefit race in June when he finished in
15:20. That was followed later that month with a 15:23 at the President’s Cup
Night Race in Millburn.
In Cross Country it was the same story. At the state cross country 5-kilometer
championship in August he won with a 15:34, and then in October he won the 8-kilometer
championship with his 26:05.
Although he didn’t get to any longer race, he showed his
credentials for longer races when he won the 2017 Halloween Half Marathon in
1:09:32.
Frost’s racing season was marred by illness as he trained for his
first full marathon in the fall of 2018.
Training for the marathon that wasn’t to be took all his focus
“It really was a shame that the marathon didn’t go well,” said
Frost. “I was in very good shape and got sick right before.”
Frost said that he will be focusing on the marathon during this
summer and fall. He plans to run the
full marathon in Philadelphia in November.
“I’ll still be focusing on track until May or June,” he said. “And will probably start doing marathon
training shortly after.”
Oh yes, track. Frost has
been competing at the Ocean Breeze indoor facility on Staten Island this season
with a win at 3,000 meters on February 8th in 8:13.78. He has had one loss, if you can call a third-place
finish in the mile in 4:11.96 a loss.
First place went to professional runner and New Jersey kid Robbie
Andrews who finished the mile in 4:02.53.
That’s called keeping good company, and Frost keeps good company
in his day job, too. He teaches math at
Del Barton where he is also a track and cross country coach. He said that he does a lot of his distance
runs are with the kids that he coaches and he even will pace them for a lot of
the workouts as well.
Frost was a standout at Randolph high school and he counts the
3,200 as his best distance with a high
school PR of 9:07. By his reckoning his
best high school performance was winning the indoor group 4 championships in
the 1600 in 2011, outrunning Timothy Ball of Piscataway 4:18.48 to 4:19.28.
“I was an underdog going into the race,” said Frost. “I was lucky enough to be in the right place
at the right time.”
Frost is coached by Nick DeSantis of Wanaque who has Frost
training no more than 50 miles per week currently for the indoor season.
“I had done a lot more in
college, but I don’t really have the time or energy with a full-time job now,”
said Frost. “It’s probably better that I
have less of a workload. I had issues with mental and physical burnout after
seasons where I was training really hard. Now, each week, unless I’m
racing, I’ll do one race specific workout and one strength workout.
That’s all.”
Frost said that he has two
workouts that standout. One is a 3 X
3200 with a one-minute rest, that Frost said is a strength workout that he is
better at.
“One workout Nick gave me
early [in the] season might be one of the most physically painful workouts I’ve
ever done,” he said. “This was especially hard because I don’t have a lot
of leg speed.”
In an email Frost described
it as “3 sets of 4 x 400, 30 seconds between reps, but 3 minutes between
sets. The first and last rep would be fast (for a long-distance guy at
least), and the middle two would be slower (all intentional).”
About his indoor racing he
said that he was pretty happy about his 3,000 meter race.
“It was a little
unexpected,” said Frost. “I thought I
would run right around 8:20. I was lucky enough to have the race set up
precisely the way I would have wanted it to be”
He said that he is not super
happy with his mile or 5k time. On the
other hand, Frost said that chasing time goals have been counter-productive for
him.
“It just adds an
unnecessary stress. Lately, I’ve been doing well just trying to enjoy
racing and enjoy the sport, and I’ll make that my goal again for 2019.”
##
No comments:
Post a Comment