Jared qualifies for 3 events at Bay State Games — sets 100m PR

Jared ran a personal best 11.2 in 100m (verified as 11.43FAT by video) for 2nd, jumped 20’9″ for 2nd, and won the 200m in 23.0 (23.18FAT by video) at Harvard this evening to qualify for these events for the Bay State Games on Saturday July 13th at Regis College in Weston (performance list). He is a top 3 seed in all three events.

This year he competes in the high school scholastic division (Age 15-17). Last year in this meet in the 10-14 junior division he won 3 events and broke the meet record in long jump. Today’s 100m mark would rank him 5th in New England for 100m for freshman. It also beats his Dad’s college PR.

His next meet is USATF Region 1 Junior Olympics at Randall Island NY on Saturday July 6th.

Video of 100m (Jared in lane 2 — on infield side):

Video of 200m:

Video of LJ:

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Jared wins New England Junior Olympic Long Jump, 2nd in 400m

Jared won the USATF New England Junior Olympic age 15-16 Long Jump competition at Fitchburg State with a 20′ 2″ jump (photos). Having the meet likely wrapped up after his 1st jump, he was aggressive in his subsequent jumps and got out to around the 22′ mark but fouled. 2nd place was 18’7″. He previous won this event two years ago in the 13-14yo division.

He also placed 2nd in the 400m in 52.14, coming on strong wit a reverse-split 25.8 final 200m, but lost by 0.03 (see video). He is in white in lane 4.

These performances qualify him to compete in the Northeast Region meet at Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island in New York. on Saturday July 6th (info packet), with the long jump going off at 11:30am and the 400m at 2:15pm. If he places top 5 at that meet, he advances to the National meet in Greensboro with long jump on Thursday July 25th at 1:30pm and 400m on Friday at 11am.

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Jared takes 3rd in New Balance National Freshman Long Jump Championship

Jared earned perhaps the highest accolade in his track career thus far Friday, placing third in the 2013 New Balance Nationals Freshman Long Jump competition (results, photos, patch article).

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Jared got a big kick out of being featured in the New Balance Friday Highlight Video at 0:22 and 0:37:

He came in on paper tied as top seed, although the late entry of Grant Holloway from Virginia, the USA #1 track freshman in high jump(6’11”), 110m hurdles(14.45), and 300m hurdles (38.56), as well as the USA #3 400m (48.58), and (now) USA #9 in long jump (22’3″) made winning a long shot. Holloway is also indoor national frosh champ at 60m and 400m.

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After having to abort his first jump mid-air due to officials yelling “stop” to exiting 100m runners nearly cutting him off, Jared rested just a moment and then opened with a 20’8″ jump. He held the meet record (for the new event 🙂 for 10 minutes until Holloway opened with a 22’0″ jump.

Jared kept Holloway on his toes, with Holloway’s 22′ jump being an inch outside Jared’s PR of 21’11” from the D1 state meet. Jared held 2nd until the final round when Tyson Spears from Roswell, Georgia jumped 21’1″. Jared countered with another 21’0″ jump on his final attempt.

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Looking at Jared’s three previous National Championship competitions, he has improved 5 feet in last 3 years:
2011 USATF Youth Nationals — 16’0″ — 11th
2012 USATF Youth Nationals — 19’2″ — 6th
2013 New Balance Nationals — 21’0″ — 3rd

I extracted the New Balance clips and the audio and combined it with my videos of his 1st and 4th jump to make a highlight video. Use this link http://youtu.be/UeqfHviw0V8 if you want to share it.

Check it out:

There are also videos of his 2nd and 3rd attempt on runnerspace (clink on the links).

Jared also ran his 2nd open 400m of his career, running a slower than hoped 53.10 for 19th after a long day in the sun and heat(New Balance Video of section 3 of freshman 400m):

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Results
1 1092 Grant Holloway 16 Chesapeake, VA 6.79m 3.0 22-03.50
6.72m(1.8) 6.68m(2.1) 6.54m(1.9) 6.54m(1.8) 6.79m(3.0) 6.46m(2.4)
2 3141 Tyson Spears 16 Roswell, GA 6.44m 2.3 21-01.50
5.15m(2.4) 5.77m(1.5) 6.35m(1.8) 6.20m(1.2) 6.10m(0.7) 6.44m(2.3)
3 3304 Jared Prior 16 Newton, MA 6.40m 4.4 21-00.00
6.30m(2.5) 6.40m(4.4) 6.26m(2.6) 6.21m(1.5) 6.04m(3.4) 6.40m(2.2)
4 209 Chris Evans 16 Indianapolis, IN 6.36m 2.1 20-10.50
5.36m(1.9) 6.36m(2.1) 6.17m(2.6) 6.04m(1.9) 6.29m(1.8) 6.16m(2.2)
5 3618 Isaac Perrigan 16 Abingdon, VA 6.32m 1.9 20-09.00
FOUL(4.2) 6.13m(2.9) 6.32m(1.9) FOUL(0.7) 6.01m(0.9) 5.60m(3.2)
6 830 Coleton Banks 16 denver, NC 6.18m 2.5 20-03.50
FOUL(2.5) FOUL(2.8) 5.76m(0.5) 6.02m(1.1) 6.18m(2.5) 6.17m(1.2)
7 836 Luke Lafferty 16 Manorville, NY 6.15m 1.9 20-02.25
FOUL(2.8) FOUL(2.1) 6.03m(3.9) 5.63m(2.1) 6.02m(2.2) 6.15m(1.9)
8 1016 Allan Jacob 16 Freehold, NJ 6.08m 1.7 19-11.50
5.86m(1.7) 5.83m(3.2) 6.08m(1.7) 4.34m(1.1) PASS PASS
9 1310 Austin Leonard 16 Niverville, NY 5.52m 0.7 18-01.50
5.10m(2.7) 5.52m(0.7) 5.38m(0.9)
10 3730 Jalen Smith 16 birmingham, AL 5.22m 0.5 17-01.50
5.22m(0.5) 4.96m(2.0) 4.96m(1.7)

Karen runs Columbus 10K

Karen made her running debut on Sunday, completing the Columbus 10K in 56:49, placing 15th in her age-group and 345th overall (results). She ran 9:10/mile pace and ran negative splits, with her 1st 5K in 28:55 and 2nd in 28:16. It looks like there was a fun-run involved for Brianna also!

“I ran my first race today! I felt good through it and finished in 56:49, which isn’t breaking any land speed records but I am totally happy with it. Now I just need to add 20 more miles to this and I will be ready for October. Gah!”

Go Karen!

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Summer Games

Mike competed in 2013 Massachusetts Summer Special Olympics at Harvard on Saturday and Sunday. Julie and her kids attended as well. The day started off with a convoy of police from across the state blaring their sirens. Mike first competed in the 25m backstroke, placing 2nd. On Sunday he competed in the 50m freestyle, placing 3rd after a strong comeback in final meters. Photos from the weekend are uploaded to a gallery and also added on end of video below. Let me know your favorites (CLICK HERE FOR PHOTO GALLERY). ‘

Video of police convoy, 25back, 50free, and awards along with slideshow:

My favorite 20 shots from the gallery are included below:

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Jared runs New England #4 Frosh 400m in Debut Race

Jared ran his 1st open 400m at the New Balance Twilight Meet Saturday night at Bentley College (results, photos). He placed 6th in a state-qualifying PR 51.85 that ranks #4 in New England behind Abu Ceesay from Gambia (see Nothing can stop Ceesay) and 2nd in MA. Nationally it ranks him 157th out of 24,000 freshman runners. He currently ranks #1 in New England in frosh long jump and 200m. His long jump national frosh rank is at 19th of 21,000.

It also gave him an official and faster qualifier for the New Balance Freshman 400m on Friday, as they had flagged the relay split submitted (entries). The twilight meets have a range of high school, college, and post grad runners shooting for qualifying times.

Lisa and I were at Special Olympics all day. Jared decided to run meet at 4pm and we got over to Bentley just under the wire at 4:30pm for race-day entry. In other news, Jared’s two Massachusetts Middle School Championship records in long jump and 4x100m survived the 3rd annual middle school meet yesterday. I think the 4x100m has a shot at lasting as two event limits will often lead strong runners to run individual events instead. Jared took team approach with 4×1 team.

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See New Balance Video from FloTrack below (Jared in Purple shirt in lane 4) with race commentators:

Karen speaks at the Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia Annual Conference

Karen addressed the annual conference of the Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia Foundation in June. See the video of her talk below. Here is a direct link to the video if you want to share it: http://vimeo.com/70635139

Karen Prior-Bernard from Spastic Paraplegia Foundation on Vimeo.

Wow.

Rebecca Hart also gave an inspiring talk. Allan summarized the event here.

North 4x400m relay takes 2nd at All-States — Team takes home state title!

Jared ran is his 2nd ever competitive 400m on Saturday, running the 2nd leg on Newton North’s 4x400m (family photos, team photos, relay video, milesplit coverage, globe article, tab article)

The Newton North 4x400m relay team came home 2nd in the state, running the 2nd fastest time in New England this year (3:22.48) out of 640 schools. Jared split a 51.17 (equivalent to 51.87 flat start), improving on his run from last week. This time would rank him as #4 freshman in New England (of 656). The relay team shocked the field by improving by over 5 seconds from last week, due to faster running and a substitution, moving up from their 7th seed to 2nd. It is the 2nd fastest time by North in available electronic records (school record 3:19).

Newton North scored 48.75 points (8 coming from relay) outdistancing Lincoln-Sudbury (28) and Newton South (27). Seniors scored 26 individual points and Juniors scored the remaining 13.75 individual points. Three of the four relay members return.

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Jared had a devasting learning experience in long jump when he neglected to check in before the event, thinking he only had to check in for his scheduled 2nd flight, and was scratched out of the meet. The meet was held in Western Mass and had an unfamiliar set of officials.

In the end his fresh legs may have been a big help to North, as their were 7 teams that ended up finishing within a half a second of North, and North would have been pushed back a few places if he hadn’t improved over last week, and that might have been the margin in the meet if his senior teammates had not performed so well in their individual events.

His next big meet is New Balance Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, NC, where Jared will compete in the Freshman long jump and 400m on Friday June 14th.

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Photos from other photographers of medalists. I was busy shooting girls 4×4 and didn’t hear annoucement (sound familiar :-)>
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