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08/04/2016 12:00 AMGriffin Dahl formed many long-lasting friendships and made quite a name for himself as a long-distance runner in the Westbrook track program.
Griffin, who recently graduated from Westbrook High School, was introduced to distance running through cross country by some of his cousins, prompting Griffin to compete on behalf of the Knights as a team-of-one, while training with the squad at Old Saybrook. Griffin ultimately progressed into a long-distance standout for Westbrook and saved his best performance for his last meet when he finished seventh in the 1,600 and 10th in the 3,200 at this spring’s Class S State Championship.
“I got the chance to meet a lot of new people through the sport and it was a really great experience and something I looked forward to every year,” says Griffin. “With long distance-running, I basically just try to tough it out. My freshman year, I ran in the 4x800 relay, mile [1,600], two-mile [3,200], and 800, and people thought I was crazy. I feel that faster you run, the sooner you’re done, so that motivated me to do better each time. When you compete, you also have to give your best effort in practice.”
A big part of any long-distance racing is pacing, however, Griffin says there’s a stark contrast in strategy between managing one’s speed bursts on the concrete in track and the all-terrain treks of cross country.
“With track, in the first and last laps, you have to go all out or else you’ll be in the back of the pack. It’s similar in cross country, but there, you have to find your right pace for a majority of the race, so you can have that burst at the end and break out the throttle, which I enjoy,” Griffin says. “I like to find the one runner that is a little faster than me and save energy for that last kick to slingshot around them and move up.”
Running the mile and two-mile on one of the state’s most competitive stages is intimidating enough, but Griffin also had to deal with some knee issues during the outdoor track season. However, Griffin displayed the heart of a warrior by powering through to the finish line to earn his tandem of top-10 finishes. Griffin recorded a time of 4:41.74 for his seventh-performance in the 1,600 and came in at 10:25.62 to grab 10th in the 3,200.
“Towards the end of this past season, I felt some weird knee pain. Once I started picking up my pace, I really felt a sharp pain under my knee cap. I went to states with a compression sleeve, which I had never worn before. It was nerve-racking, but it was my last high school event. I didn’t want to call it quits because pain is temporary, but pride is forever,” says Griffin, who holds the school record for the mile at 4:38. “I didn’t have the greatest times that day, but I was one second off the school record in the 3,200. My mile time was decent, but I wanted to break the school record again. I just sang a song in my head to distract myself from the knee pain, but I would say it all went well that day.”
Westbrook outdoor track Head Coach Tim Marshall says that Griffin never needed any prodding to travel in the right direction and was always ready to reach the next plateau. Griffin was a captain for Marshall’s team in the recent season.
“He is a self-motivated person. He has a great ability to set goals for himself and do whatever it takes to reach them, but also to not be content with reaching the goals and instead setting new ones,” says Marshall. “He is a hard worker in everything he does and he is extremely supportive of his teammates and his fellow competitors.”
Griffin, who will attend Marquette University this fall, feels great admiration for all the people he’s worked with these past few years and says he’ll remember the connections he made more so than any personal-best times. Griffin thanks Westbrook track coaches Marshall, Sheridan Bauman, and Heather Pierce, along with Old Saybrook coaches Peter Capezzone and Adam Eldridge, plus all of his past teammates and competitors in both track and cross country.
“There’s not a lot of trash talking in running compared to other sports, so there is a lot of camaraderie involved. There’s some joking before a race, but everyone is a good sport about it all. I loved meeting people through track and I still keep in touch with some runners,” says Griffin. “The connections made the sport more enjoyable and even guys on the other schools would cheer me on if they weren’t in that same event. It was something I came to enjoy the past four years.”