Brad Bunney

Right now, students are running around to find reserve reading and taking midterms. That as, most likely, what the Harvard men's track team's Brad Bunney should be doing too. But Bunney prefers to run the show himself Instead of being in Lamont today. Bunney is at the National Championships in Syracuse, N.Y. By setting a personal record (1:51:36) in the 880-yd. run at the Greater Boston Championships in early February, Bunney became the only Crimson trackster qualified to put fear into challengers from all over the country.

Four years ago, Bunney was Connecticut State Champion in the half mile as a senior at Guilford High Just a few years later the Quincy House senior is once again the cream of the crop of his trade, the art of running faster than anybody else.

Bunney started out as a quarter miler in high school, but on his coach's recommendation, he decided to give the half mile a shot. "I really enjoy 1500 meters, but it's a bit too long," Bunney says of the change. "It's a different type of tired," he says about the quarter mile, but then again, "It's a longer being good."

Formula For Victory

No matter what he runs, however, Bunney seems to pull it off. Take this year's Greater Boston Championships and Big Three meet, for example. At the GBC's Bunney only ran the 880-yd. race, while at the Big Three he raced both the 1500- and 800-meter runs.

The Biochemistry concentrator's deceptively simple formula for victory works something like this. Starting out modestly in the middle of the field, Bunney makes sure that the pace is neither too sluggish nor too breathtaking for his liking. Then he surreptitiously reads his opponents, always keeping an eye on who's in the lead. And that's exactly what the race looks like until the thinclads approach the last lap and a half.

Bunney just won't make his move before the shot signalling the last lap of the run goes off with a blast.

That's when the bell tolls for Bunney's challengers, and when he takes charge of all action and entertainment.

Suddenly, as if struck by lightening, Bunney breezes along the field's outside past all competition, sometimes running as far out as the second or third track during the course of the next-to-last curve before the finish.

Once Bunney has exploded, the run becomes a race for second place.

His results speak for themselves. The Big Three meet was no different from the GBC's, in which Bunney set the personal record that sent him to Syracuse, Bunney burst past one and all--teammates as well as Yale and Princeton runners--in both the 1500- and 800-meter races in 3:49:85 and 1:53:21, respectively.

Bunney first qualified for the Nationals in his second year on the Harvard team. But although he had been ranked highly in the Ivy League in both the half and quarter mile his freshman and sophomore years. Bunney maintained a healthy perspective on his chances when it came to national opposition. "Sophomore year, as far as the Nationals go, was a learning experience," Bunney says.

"My junior year was my down year. That's the only year in which I haven't improved on my times," Bunney recalls. "It was a time for study. I had to miss two or three practices every week because of biology and physics labs," he adds.

The season didn't begin on a happy note either for Bunney, who suffered from mononucleosis last summer. He couldn't begin training for cross-country and indoor track until mid-September.

But consolation might be on its way Knowing very well that he is only about three seconds away from the U.S. Olympic qualifying time in the half mile, Bunney still entertains high hopes. It [the Olympics] is obviously always a goal. There is still time," he says.

Still, that's not Bunney's bottom line. "Competing with other people is in the first place fun," he says. "Second, it brings a lot of good people together. And it provides an enjoyable break from academics."