Shelter Island’s distance running sensation and now Iowa Hawkeye star, Kal Lewis, will participate in the 42nd Annual Shelter Island 10K Run on Saturday, June 19.
[The race begins at 5 PM in the Town Center; read this post for more details.]
Lewis grew up looking forward to the third Saturday in June when world-class runners, legends from the past and other runners of all talents would invade his quiet little island.
Like so many Islanders, but especially as a runner, he loved the weekend and the energy it brought.
“I loved running it,” he said. “I did pretty well on very little training when I was young and thought that maybe I could be a pretty good runner so I stuck with the sport.”
Scholar-athlete
His instincts were good. A heavily recruited Shelter Island High School scholar-athlete, Lewis has just completed a phenomenal freshman year at the University of Iowa where he made the difficult transition from a tiny high school with only 70 students to a large, NCAA, Division 1, Big 10 powerhouse.
Prior to going to Iowa City for his collegiate running, Lewis won four Suffolk County and three New York State Class “D” Cross Country Championships and the 2019 New York State Indoor 1600-meter run with a 4:17.2.
One week later, COVID-19 shut down all scholastic sports ending Lewis’s high school career with that race.
Becoming a Hawkeye
The young Hawkeye picked up where he left off in high school. In spite of missing seven weeks training due to an ankle injury, he opened the indoor season with a 4:19 mile.
Then, in three consecutive weekends, he reeled off personal best performances at 600 meters (1:21), 800 meters (1:54) and the mile (4:14). Two weeks later he took his game to a whole new level finishing fourth in an elite field of Big 10 milers with a 4:07.14 clocking.
At the Big 10 Championships, Lewis clocked a blistering 2:58 lead off 1200-meter leg in the Distance Medley Relay putting Iowa in contention. The following day he broke the Iowa Freshman school record and notched the third fastest indoor mile in Iowa school history with a 4:04 clocking. Lewis scored points in both events, contributing to Iowa’s first Big 10 indoor champion team title in more than 90 years.
The 2021 outdoor season opened in March. Lewis continued to excite Hawkeye coaches and fans when he clocked a 3:49.44 in his first-ever 1500 meter run —roughly equivalent to a 4:07 mile.
Three weeks later in Jacksonville, Florida he lowered that time to a blistering 3:43.42, just 4/10ths of a second off Jeff Thode’s 11-year-old school record and equivalent to a 4:01 mile.
Coach Randy Hasenbank summed it up: “Kal stepped up and scored points for us wrapping up a great freshman season.”
Welcome home, Kal
Kal’s mother, Kristina Lange, was herself a high school athlete in multiple sports and a four-year member of the Ithaca College rowing team.
“I am blown away by his progress at Iowa,” she said. “I give his high school coach, Toby Green, a lot of credit for bringing him along carefully. He did not burn Kal out with high mileage. I was a little surprised when I heard Kal chose Iowa at first, but once I met Coach Hasenbank and saw what he does with Kal, I knew he was in the right school.”
On Saturday, Kal returns home to a very familiar course on which he has raced and trained many times. It was not always that way. When he was 8, Lewis entered the 5K event for the first time expecting a nice run in a sport very new to him.
A mile into the run he and his buddy, Liam Adipietro, son of Race Director M.E. Adipietro, missed the 5K turn and continued along with the 10K crowd. The two very tired, aspiring athletes finished the full distance and never made that mistake again.
Coming off a track season and a two week post-season rest directed by Coach Hasenbank, Kal has not been training for the 10K distance, but looks forward to seeing what he can do on his home course. He is looking for a time around 33:00.
Welcome home, Kal!
