Jack Pearce of Lynnwood runs in pretty good company.
On Tuesday it was announced that Pearce had been named Athlete of the Week by USA Track and Field, the sport’s governing body in this country. How prestigious is the award? Sprinter Justin Gatlin, who won an Olympic gold medal in 2004 and was a two-time winner at this year’s World Championships, won the same award back in August.
The difference is that Pearce is a 10-year-old fourth grader at Lynnwood’s Hilltop Elementary School. He was honored after winning the bantam boys 3-kilometer race Saturday at the 2005 USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships in Smithfield, R.I., finishing first out of 246 runners.
Pearce, who represents a running team called the Rain City Flyers, finished in a time of 12:17.07, 11 seconds ahead of Aaron Acord of the Arizona Blades.
“It was pretty exciting,” Pearce said earlier this week. He added that he was “very, very surprised” to win the award, but that he thought “it was pretty cool.”
The award is “designed to recognize outstanding performers at all levels of the sport,” according to a USATF release.
His father, Tom Pearce, said Jack began to get serious about running last summer. He started cross country workouts with the Flyers in September, training three days a week with the team and sometimes getting in a Sunday run with his dad. It comes out to about 10-15 miles a week, Tom Pearce said.
“He loved it,” said his father. “It was fun for him. At practice the coach would often tell him, ‘Here, we want you to do two sets of these,’ and he would say, ‘Oh, can’t I do three?’ And, ‘Can’t I run with the older kids?’ “
The boy is successful, Tom Pearce said, because “he’s got a good runner’s build, but also because he really works hard and he has fun doing it. He enjoys workouts almost as much as the races.”
To qualify for last Saturday’s race, Jack Pearce previously won a race for Western Washington runners, then finished second at a regional race for athletes from Washington, Oregon, Alaska and part of Idaho.
When he is not running, he enjoys “the typical kid stuff,” said his father. Jack is a Cub Scout, he likes animals, enjoys reading, and he also plays basketball and baseball.
As for running, Jack Pearce said, “I don’t know why I like it so much. I just do.”
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