By Mike Giberti

For track and field athletes and fans around the Boston area, the BU Track and Tennis Center was once again the place to be. On Sunday, the BU Last Chance Meet took place to give collegiate athletes one more chance to qualify for nationals this indoor season. But it turned out to be much more than just that. Highlighting the meet were new American and NCAA Records in the 1000m along with two World Master’s Records in a special 4 x 800m relay event at the conclusion of the meet.

David Torrence (Nike) raced to a phenomenal 2:16.76 to sneak under the national record for the distance by a second with Nate Brennan (Saucony) right on his heels to run 2:16.81. Brennan set a new Canadian national mark with that time. Finishing in a “distant third” (said with tongue firmly in cheek) Rich “Dicky P” Peters ran one of the best races of his life to garner a new NCAA 1000m record with his 2:18.55 on his home track. What better feeling than breaking records and seeing other records get broken at a track within walking distance of your apartment?!

The new American Record was impressive, but as was stated earlier there were also two 4 x 800m teams that shattered master’s World Records a few hours later. As a last second addition to the meet, the Greater Boston Track Club hosted a special 4 x 800m relay section at the end of the night to give two Master’s teams a chance at breaking World Records. And they did just that! A Men’s 40-49 team consisting of Ed Winslow, GBTC’s Chris Blondin, Mark Williams, and Nick Berra won the relay and crushed the previous age group record with a 7:49.90. They ran splits of 1:59.91, 1:59.69, 1:55.75, and 1:54.93, respectively. The second place team was a Central Park Track Club squad who went 7:55.13 to break the Men’s 35-39 age group record. These records don’t get broken very often as it’s not easy to get the best master’s athletes in the world to all fly in for one short race. And it was well worth seeing it happen here in New England.

Other great aspects of the meet included current American Record holder Molly Huddle (Saucony) getting a 15:13 5k race in while dragging two William and Mary girls to D1 Qualifying times in the event. There was also a super-heated Men’s DMR between Villanova and Georgetown. The Villanova team broke the facility record with a 9:28.06 and the Georgetown team was not far behind in 9:29.16, ranking themselves 3^rd and 6^th in the nation, respectively. There were also two sub 4 minute miles and a sub 8 minute 3k. Check out the full results here.