Alaska News

Dunbar targets 4-minute mile Saturday

Nobody has ever run a sub-4-minute mile in Alaska, but Kodiak's Trevor Dunbar, a sophomore at the University of Portland, will give it a shot Saturday at The Dome.

The Laird Prosser Memorial Mile is one of the special events in the two-day Big C Relays, a high school track and field meet that will feature 32 teams and more than 900 athletes. The meet begins today and the featured mile run is scheduled to begin at 12:50 p.m. Saturday.

Rob Conner, Dunbar's college coach, is optimistic about Dunbar's chances of breaking the 4-minute mark.

"He's sharp and fast and feeling good," Conner said. "He's in the best shape of his college career right now."

This will be the second straight year runners take aim at a 4-minute mile at the meet. Last year, UAA's Alfred Kangogo won in 4 minutes, 5.36 seconds. Dunbar was second in 4:05.77.

Last May, Dunbar lowered his personal-best in the mile to 4:01.31, and two weeks ago he won the 1,500-meter race at the Stanford Invitational in a time of 3:46.52.

Besides the mile, the meet will include a number of other special events like the pentathlon, which isn't contested during the regular season in Alaska. Today at 3 p.m., there will be an exhibition of pole vaulting, another event not contested in Alaska.

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Then there is the Run with the Champions 4x100 relay, which will give a couple lucky runners an opportunity to run on relay teams with two of the world's top decathletes -- reigning Olympic decathlon champion Bryan Clay and three-time NCAA decathlon champion Ashton Eaton. Names will be drawn from a hat during the Fellowship of Christian Athletes breakfast on Saturday morning to determine which two girls, two boys and two coaches get to join Clay and Eaton on relay teams.

Clay and Eaton will also put on the pole vault exhibition and demonstrate drills for discus and shot put. The two are the guest athletes for the meet, which is organized by Grace Christian School. Making his second straight appearance at the meet will be Dave Johnson, who won the bronze medal in the decathlon at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Anchorage Daily News

sports@adn.com

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