Roseville senior cross-country standout Robert Mechura calls his approach to success “playing the long game.”
It worked to perfection on Friday.
Mechura won the 38th annual Roy Griak Invitational at the Les Bolstad Golf Course near the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus.
His winning time of 15 minutes and 35 seconds put him ahead of Minnetonka’s Sean Fries by 17.4 seconds in the boys championship division race.
“I was nervous because there were a lot of good runners out here,” said Mechura, who won last November’s Class 3A meet on the same 5,000-meter course. “It’s probably the most competitive race I’ll run until state. But I was also confident because I was the top Minnesota runner here last year, and I had a good summer.”
At the state track and field meet in June at St. Michael-Albertville, Mechura also swept the 3A 1,600- and 3,200-meter races. He spent the offseason working smarter, not harder. Just because he could run for days doesn’t mean he found it wise.
“It’s better to do too little than a little too much,” he said. “Last year, I think I went a little too hard on my summer workouts. I was a little smarter about not going so hard.”
On Friday, Mechura was 6.5 seconds off the lead pace at the one-mile mark and the gap increased to 8.1 seconds at the 3,000-meter mark. He wasn’t fazed.
