Andy Hecker’s indoor-outdoor meet gives race walker a boost

Molly of Missouri Baptist has great morning weather for her 3K walk.

Molly, a senior at Missouri Baptist, had great morning weather for her 3K walk.

Andy Hecker’s annual indoor-meet-held-outdoors again served to help open athletes as well as masters. In Santa Ana, California, on Valentine’s Day, he offered a 3000-meter race walk. Masters partook, but so did 22-year-old Missouri Baptist star Molly Josephs, getting coaching help from all-world walker Tim Seaman in San Diego. Check out this video interview. The Garden City, New York, native got a qualifying time for the USATF Indoor Nationals — the trials for IAAF Worlds in Portland. Molly walked 3K in 13:57, she told me. The NAIA record is a only a few seconds faster. A 52-foot triple jumper also needed a mark for indoor nationals, but I didn’t catch his result. Andy did a masters mitzvah (good deed) by giving the kids a chance. Molly will walk 20K as part of the 50K Olympic Trials a week from now in Santee (near San Diego), which I’ll be covering as well. Stay tuned for photos from Andy’s meet.