Lucy Jenks of Newton South is such a unique and gifted talent that she could have elected any of the three distance race options for championship season to go for a state title and pursue an All-State Meet record between the 1000, mile, and two mile with her state leading season bests of 2:48.97 (US #2) in the 1000, 4:47.83 (US #5) in the mile, and 10:17.03 (US #2) in the two mile.
But the glorified event that is the one mile run was a fitting choice. On Saturday in the MIAA All-State Meet as the overwhelming favorite pressuring some of the other top seeds girls to scratch to go fresh for the two mile instead, Jenks was set on her mission to time trial after Catarina Rocha's meet record performance of 4:49.14 from the 2013 MIAA All-State Meet.
Jenks could not have ran a more perfectly paced race hitting the first quarter mile in 72 seconds, 2:24 at the half mile, 3:37 at three-quarters of a mile and closing in 71 seconds for her final quarter mile to break the record in a time of 4:48.22.
It ended up being the only meet record set on a day, which saw many outstanding performances including a number of state leading and US top 10 performances, but none historically greater than the run by Jenks in the girls mile.
Her day was not finished with the mile. Jenks came back later in the meet to anchor her Newton South girls to the victory in the 4x800 meter relay as they improved upon their state leading time and moved up to US #5 nationally with their overall time of 9:19.90. Jenks took the baton with the lead, but only built the advantage for her team with a 2:13 anchor leg split.
Next on deck for the Stanford University commit will be a likely defense of her New England Championships title from a year ago in the mile next Saturday and racing for another All-American finish at New Balance Nationals Indoor in March. Jenks ran her lifetime best of 4:45 in the mile in a fifth place showing in the 2019 New Balance Nationals Indoor.
