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Tree Makes 6th Place at Historic Penn Relays
Kevin Tree continues to tear up the track, and personal bests south of the border in his 2016 outdoor track season. On Thursday Kevin took on a field of NCAA D1 runners in the 5,000m race at the Penn Relays, placing 6th in a time of 14:07.36, an improvement of 10 seconds on his personal best.
Held in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, the Penn Relays are the oldest track meet in the U.S., dating back to 1895. Over 22,000 athletes compete across all track and field events.
Tree proved once again he has the gusto to hang with NCAA Division 1 athletes, with his fellow runners on Thursday coming from the likes of Duke, Michigan, Harvard, Tennessee, Indiana and Georgetown. Tree finished 15 seconds behind the winner, Brian Barraza from the University of Houston.As usual Tree ran a patient race gradually moving up through the large field of 24 athletes. Just after the halfway point a group of 10 athletes broke away from the pack and Tree was caught too far back to get into this leading group. He ended up running in no man’s land for about 1500m before he eventually was able to catch a few athletes in the last lap of the race.
“Another solid run for Tree,” said coach Kip Sigsworth, who watched the race online. “It has been a busy last couple of weeks with exams and travel so I was happy he was able to come out to this meet and compete as well as he did. The Penn Relays are one of the most famous and certainly oldest meets in North America so it was great for him to get a chance to compete here. Tree hasn’t really done much speed work yet this year so with a few more specific workouts he should be able to run even faster.”
Kevin’s time on Thursday currently ranks him 7th in Canada, and coach Sigsworth thinks he is capable of breaking the 14-minute mark this season.
Next up for Tree is the Athletics Ontario 10,000m Track Championships in London on May 14th.