Southland's Jack Beaumont at home on the flatlands
Despite a love of the mountains, Southland runner Jack Beaumont has found a new home on the flatlands of northern Texas.
A scholarship athlete at the University of North Texas, about half an hour north of Dallas, Beaumont has just over a year of a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance to run.
It’s a dream he’s chased since he was 15, planning his strategy with athletics coach Lance Smith in the same way he’d prepare for a race; supported by Trevor McKinley, his principal at Northern Southland College, and Jason McKenzie and Carly Anderson from Academy Southland, who helped choose the best school for him.
“It was always my goal to go over there. When I was 19, I got in touch with an agency who help with the whole process of getting recruited. I got emailed back by quite a number of universities, but North Texas really ticked all the boxes and had everything for me. It just felt like the right choice and I still feel like I picked the right place.”
Beaumont’s student life is highly organised. Waking early in an apartment block surrounded by members of his running team, he eats quickly before heading to the track and a two-hour training session. If it’s not a strength and conditioning day, he’ll grab some breakfast and head to class until mid-afternoon, when it’s time for a quick lunch before heading back to training and then home to study and recover.
But now it isn’t.
While warming up for his first track meet of the season, Beaumont and his teammates were given the news that the season had been indefinitely postponed as the United States began to realise the full extent of its Covid-19 crisis.
With little hope of running competitively in the short term, and with classes migrating online, Beaumont opted to return to New Zealand while the borders were still open and is currently grinding his way through the mandatory 14-day lockdown period in Winton.
While he can still run, and thank heavens for that, he’s had to adjust to a less-structured way of life, and adopt a No 8 wire mentality – creating a makeshift set of weights out of water bottles rescued from the recycling pile, for example.
The timing has been less than ideal for Beaumont, who has had to be resilient after several injury setbacks during his time at North Texas.
“I’ve had to struggle with getting really fit and fast and being ready to race, and then just getting hit with something when I get to that point.”
After missing the entire cross-country season with a stress fracture in his femur, he was excited about the looming track season which will now never be, consoling himself by running just for the sheer joy of it.
While he loves North Texas, the geography is about as challenging as a tabletop and the nearest trails, while beautiful, are a half hour drive away.
“There’s nothing better than just going out and running in the hills, in the mountains. It’s very rewarding and freeing for me. It’s calming, not stressful. It’s always nice to be back here where I can train in the hills and mountains again.”
Beaumont had dreams of being in the Olympic conversation at this stage of his career, but is pragmatic about his running future despite learning a huge amount over the past three years.
“Before I went to America I was hoping that by this point I’d be close to Olympic standard and would keep pursuing it at that level, but I’m not quite there right now,” he says.
“I’m thinking about my future, but I’m not stressing about it. If I do continue at an elite level, it won’t be in cross country or the track, it will be in trail and mountain running.”
The running talent in the United States was incredible, with hundreds of athletes who are, to put it simply, very, very good, Beaumont says.
“It’s like if every competition was at the level, or higher, of the New Zealand championships. I haven’t won a single big competition over there. Every school has someone as good as you, if not better, and every meet you go to, you’ve got really tough competition.”
For three years from 2015, Beaumont represented New Zealand at the world mountain running championships. In 2016 he was the ninth-fastest junior in the world, and in his final year he finished 13th in the senior men’s race in Italy amongst a field of very strong runners.
“My goal was to get top 50 at that race and when I came into the finish line I can still remember the feeling, I couldn’t believe that I’d just done that.”
Beaumont has a message for any young Southland athlete who, like him, has a dream of winning a scholarship and moving to the United States.
“There are so many universities out there looking for internationals to fill those recruiting spots. It’s not something that’s unreachable. They know that New Zealanders are hardworking and that we do well over there.”
ENDS
