Bossong Continues To Raise The Bar

Bossong Continues To Raise The Bar

Cheverus sophomore Victoria Bossong had one of the best indoor season of any sprinter in Maine history. The small but diminutive Bossong won the sprint triple at the Class A state meet in February setting state meet records in the 55m, 400m & 200m to lead the Stags to a repeat team title.

The great indoor season has been a launching pad for the outdoor season so far. In her first meet of the year at the South Portland Vacation Invitational she stepped up in distance to the 800m running a state leading 2:19.26. In the first regular season meet at Falmouth, she easily won the 400m in 57.39 and 200m in 26.47, excellent times and even more impressive when you consider the weather, cloudy with temps in the 40's.

"Coming out of indoor, I was excited to be able to train outside on the track instead of in the hallway. Although the weather hasn't been that great, practicing outside on the warmer days has been so beneficial to my training. In my first outdoor 400m, running 57-point in the cold made it evident that I had a long way to improve, but I was glad to see I hadn't lost much of my fitness coming off of indoor." She said.

On Tuesday she ran at Thornton Academy running her first 100m of the season in a time of 12.28. There was no wind gauge at the meet so it's hard to say if the mark was wind legal, but it was just off the windy 12.18 she recorded last June in winning the Class A 100m title.

Later in the meet she took on the 400m lowering her previous season best from 57.39 to 55.90. The mark surpassed the 56.24 state all-time best she set at the New Balance Outdoor Nationals freshman race last June. She now has the three fastest 400m times run in state history, and with the rest of her sophomore year plus two more ahead expect her to break the record several more times.

Looking ahead to the rest of the spring Bossong says,  "Because the outdoor season is so short, I only have a few more chances to run the 400m before nationals. So every time I compete, I really need to concentrate and give it everything I have so that I steadily improve and have a good seed time going into the bigger meets. For now, I'm looking to break 55 seconds, but on a perfect day at the end of the season with good weather and competition, sub-54 would be ideal."

As expected training has been going well this spring.

"My training has been going very well this spring. So far, we've mostly been doing tempo runs and short speed work, but it's been really challenging regardless. I've hit some big PRs in workouts and on my fly runs, so I knew I was capable of running good times." Bossong commented.