The outdoor track season at Idaho State University is officially under way. The Bengals would like to build on their successful indoor season and one athlete that will be an essential building block for the outdoor track season will be senior Bryce Jenkins.
“We have a good majority of people who are good at indoors but our main focus is usually on outdoors,” said Jenkins. “The track program is more geared towards outdoor track season.”
There are numerous events that are not offered during the indoor season, such as the steeplechase, which is Jenkins’s specialty.
The steeplechase has been referred to as the duckbilled platypus of track and field. It’s an event that combines a variety of components in one race.
It’s a 3000-meter run with seven water jumps and 28 hurdle jumps, with each hurdle nearly a meter in height. Each runner must go over or through the water pit and must jump each hurdle.
A few athletes, such as Jenkins, use the indoor season as preparation for the outdoor season where they can really blossom.
Jenkins doesn’t have any specific goals for the season but he stated that he would like to make nationals this year in the steeplechase.
“I’d also like to run a time that would put me in good standings for the Olympic trial B times,” he said.
Jenkins would like to be around the 8:30 mark for the two-mile steeplechase. He had a career best 8:58.03 at the Stanford Invitational on March 29. He will have to improve his time by almost 30 seconds to meet his goal.
If he doesn’t it won’t be for a lack of hard work. Jenkins can be seen at various points in town running with his team. Jenkins runs longer and harder in practice so when it comes to the meet it’s easier on him physically.
“I’m putting in the miles and the work to better prepare myself,” said Jenkins.
He wants to represent his country in the Olympics and is looking to take advantage of a unique position he holds as a member of the military. He is commissioning in the military in May where he will try and participate in the Army World Class Athlete Program (W-CAP.)
“They pay you two years to train for the Olympics,” said Jenkins. “I’d like to run at the Olympic trial times before I commission to increase my chances of getting into the program.”
After Jenkins graduates this May, he will be on active duty in the military. If he doesn’t get to run on a competitive level, Jenkins won’t stop running even if it’s just for fun. Still, he said it would be disappointing that he wouldn’t be able to see how far he could have gone in the professional running world.
Anybody who has met Jenkins realizes that he’s an odd duck. He has openly admitted that a mile is too short of a distance to even bother running, which for many sounds insane. When I last saw him he was intentionally growing an interesting mustache and during the season he refuses to wash his uniform top.
The outdoor season is already off to a solid start. A handful of Bengals have already qualified for the Big Sky Championships. On March 30, senior Bradi Hutchison broke her own record in the women’s 10,000m at the Stanford Invitational. At the same meet Camille Marchand won the women’s 200m, and the 100m dash with a meet record of 12.19.
The Bengals will continue their season on April 6 for the All-Idaho Cup in Nampa.
