When junior Nathan Szubin stepped up to the line of the 3,200 meter race in the Johns Hopkins Invitational Meet on April 19, he had a different philosophy than usual. Despite being nervous, Nathan approached the race feeling more positive than in previous ones. Instead of attempting to get settled and relax into his pace to maintain a constant pace, Nathan thought about keeping his foot on the gas pedal and pushing. Ultimately, this paid off and Nathan achieved a time of 9:58, becoming the first CESJDS runner to ever break 10 minutes in the 3,200 meter race.
During the last 200 meters of his race, it was unclear whether or not Nathan would break the 10 minute barrier due to slight changes in his pace. Rounding into the last stretch he heard head track coach Jason Belinkie yell out his current time, motivating him to pass a couple people and break the record.
Although he did not know that he would achieve this milestone, this race was the perfect opportunity for Nathan to break the record as the meet was at a college track with many competitors around his pace.
“You had that feeling that this was gonna be a moment for anyone participating in this meet from our team, to be put in the best possible position to run at their highest level, and that’s exactly what happened,” Belinkie said. “….there was just a great feeling. I think a lot of the people that were competing, you could just tell that people were trying to uplift each other.”
Nathan had already attempted to go under 10 minutes in the 3,200 meter race a couple of times, but had always come up short. One such example was in November, directly after the cross country season, when he achieved a personal record of 10:07.
“It motivated me more positively than negatively,” Nathan said. “I didn’t really feel like oh, you’re getting sore you have to do this, but I would kind of see slow progress and that would make me feel like okay, you’re getting closer and closer you’re gonna be able to do it soon.”
This is not the first school record Nathan has broken. He also broke the 5k record with a time of 15:41 this past fall.
Both his mom and his coach credit Nathan’s records to his work ethic. According to Belinkie, Nathan always puts in more work than expected of him, even through setbacks.
“I’ve been equally impressed with just his attitude and how he’s handled that adversity in those moments, where I think a lot of other people would potentially have given up sooner or would have kind of stopped working as hard as he had when it’s just taken so long to get to this point,” Belinkie said.
Nathan continues to look forward, and he aims to break his mile time of 4:44.38 during this last season of spring track.
“In the car coming home, he was very proud of himself and very happy and also already talking about the next meet and the next workout,” Nathan’s mom Miriam Szubin said. “…Because, he didn’t take this as ‘okay, now I have done it and I’m done.’ He’s gonna continue to push himself to see what more he can do, and how else he can contribute to the team.”
When asked about the race, Nathan made sure to congratulate his teammates for also achieving their personal best times. Nathan is a captain on both the track and cross country teams, and hopes to inspire younger runners.
“It’s a big honor but I think there’s a lot of freshmen or a lot of kids in eighth grade [and] seventh grade right now who are also really fast and I would also love to see them get up there,” Nathan said. “…I hope that my records and times on athletic dot net [a website that stores race times] will serve as a goal and serve as a mark for people to try to get, like the other people’s times have done for me.”
