By David Rogers. BLACKSBURG, Va. — His time was roughly two seconds slower than his personal best of a year ago, but ZAP Endurance team member Dan Schaffer’s time of 3:59.60 was the fastest of a fast field on Jan. 20 in the 1 Mile Run event of the Hokie Invitational.
Schaffer’s personal best at the distance indoors is a sizzling 3:57.47, established at the Boston University Last Chance meet on Feb. 27, 2022, but in Blacksburg on Friday he was one of only two athletes earning sub-4 minute times. Second place went to University of North Carolina sophomore Ethan Strand (3:59.83). A pair of North Carolina State juniors captured the third and fourth places, Ian Harrison (4:01.09) and Brett Gardner (4:01.33).
Trailing Strand and Penn State’s Drew Maher for most of the race, Schaffer used a strong finishing kick to overtake the Tar Heel athlete in the last two laps, while Maher dropped out with three laps to go on the 8-lap indoor track.
Schaffer was a highly decorated track star at both indoor and outdoor distances in both high school and college. He competed for Binghamton University and, after graduation last year, joined the ZAP Endurance team in the late summer and will primarily focus on distances from 5,000 meters to 10,000 meters, according to his comments in an interview with High Country Sports in September.
