Garrett Heath Talks About Last Weekend's Fast DMR and 3000m in Seattle

We tracked down former Winona High School star Garrett Heath, now a red-shirt sophomore at Stanford, after last weekend's successes at the UW Invite in Seattle. Heath split 2:56 on the 1200 meter leg of Stanford's meet-winning and NCAA Indoor automatic qualifying 9:33.16 distance medly relay team and followed up the next afternoon with an NCAA provisional qualifying mark of 8:01.96 for 3000m.

"I really didn’t know what to expect as my legs were pretty tired from the day before going in," Heath said of the 3000. "I knew that I could run around 8:00 when I was fresh, but after the 1200 on Friday and being a little tired coming in I wasn’t really sure. I really was aiming for anything around the provisional time of 8:05 or faster."

The former MSHSL state cross country, nordic skiing, and track champion plans to race the mile in either Arkansas or Seattle in two weeks and then, depending on that outcome, run either another mile or 3000 in preparation for what he hopes will be a busy and successful NCAAs.

"I would also like to run another 1200m leg at some point this season to get used to the distance a little more, as doing well as a team in the DMR is what I really want to focus on this indoor season," Heath said.

Last year, with Heath anchoring on the mile leg, the Cardinal DMR finished 8th in 9:41.91.

Photo courtesy of Stanford University.