Copyright Anchorage Daily News
Nearly two weeks ago, John Peckham became the 14th man in the history of the University of Alaska Anchorage cross country program to be crowned Great Northwest Athletic Conference champion. Since then, the senior distance runner has enjoyed the support he’s received from his team and the Alaska sports scene at large. “It feels great. I’m super excited about it,” he said. “The love of the community has been incredible, honestly, and the team has just been awesome.” Last year, he finished fifth at the GNAC Championships and second in steeplechase during the spring track and field season. As the program’s top returner from last year, he set his sights on winning the conference title at the beginning of the season. “Winning a cross country one is really, really special, because it kind of just brings together the whole field of distance runners,” Peckham said. “It was definitely my biggest goal in the conference (competition).” Although he was set on achieving the feat, he wasn’t necessarily expecting it because of the stiff competition he’d be facing. “Everyone was running so well this year,” Peckham said. “I just went in with minimal expectations and with hopes of winning, and it just worked out.” He didn’t start the season as dominant as he finished it due in part to his summer training, where his workouts focused more on volume and less on intensity. As the season went on, he began to see the benefits of the restrained method because he was peaking when it mattered most. “It was just to ensure that I can be at my best during championship season, and not in September or October,” Peckham said. “It started off a little bit sluggish. I didn’t have my best results in September, but I just kind of kept trusting that it would come together, and luckily, it did at the right time.” In addition to winning a title at the conference championships in Billings, Montana, he also set a new personal best in the 8K race with a winning time of 24 minutes, 4 seconds. “I had never really ran a time that demonstrated my fitness level until Billings,” Peckham said. The Western Regional course in Monmouth, Oregon, where he’ll compete this weekend, will be a 10K course, and he hopes to set a new personal best there too. “You never know, because the races are so tactical and you never go in expecting to run the fastest time, just because it’s all about placing,” Peckham said. At last year’s regional championship, he ran one of the best races of his career at that point, coming in at eighth place. “It was kind of probably the biggest moment of my career up to that point because it was able to qualify me for the national meet last year, which kind of helped me gain a bunch of experience to be able to race better this year.” With that valuable experience under his belt, he is heading into this year’s regionals with confidence, feeling like he’s at the peak of his powers. “I am definitely very confident after this last meet, but I’m not taking anything for granted,” Peckham said. “There’s so many excellent runners in our region that I think losing a little bit of focus and thinking that it will be given to me would yield some bad results.” He cracked the top 100 at nationals last year with a 91st-place finish, and hopes to earn another opportunity to place higher this time around. Becoming a Seawolf Peckham grew up in Sisters, Oregon, and fell in love with distance running in his sophomore year of high school. “I’ve probably been running pretty much daily since I was 15 years old,” he said. “I just love competition, especially in cross country. It’s the best feeling to do well in a cross country race.” Peckham has a connection to Alaska through his mother, who grew up in Anchorage. He even made a couple of visits to the 49th state growing up to see family. However, it wasn’t until he entered the transfer portal and the UAA coaching staff sought him out that he thought about joining the Green and Gold. “Chas (Davis) and Danielle (Patterson) are just incredible coaches, and I really enjoyed working with them, and I could tell that it was going to be a good fit when I was being recruited,” Peckham said. Coming out of high school, he began his college career at the Division I level with the University of Idaho but opted to jump in the portal because the program’s primary focus didn’t align with his goals. “It wasn’t the focus on cross country and long distance running,” Peckham said. “It was more of a mid-distance program, and I wanted to come somewhere where we had big goals in cross country and in the 5K and 10K.” Growing up, the only UAA program Peckham was familiar with was the hockey team, who he had seen play powerhouses from across the country. He didn’t know about the rich history of the cross country program. “I dug deeper into it and realized that it would be a great place to go run,” Peckham said. Learning from a fellow champion Peckham’s time as Seawolf overlapped with that of program legend and fellow GNAC champion Cole Nash. Peckham learned what it took to be an elite performer by watching and running alongside him for three seasons. “I learned so much from Cole,” he said. “He was an excellent leader, which has helped me with my leadership role in the team. But then also he just taught me about discipline and the sport and what it takes to be great and can be at the national level, which is also what I’m trying to do, and pass down to the younger guys on the team.” Peckham became the face of UAA cross country this year after Nash’s departure via transfer and followed in Nash’s footsteps by being named the GNAC Men’s Cross Country Athlete of the Year. “It’s definitely an honor to carry on that tradition of GNAC champions at UAA and just a strong distance running program,” he said. “I don’t think I feel that much pressure, just because I have a great team of guys around me that are doing equally really great things.” The Seawolves’ depth has earned the team the No. 20 national ranking heading into regions. As good as it felt to be the first across the finish line, watching five of his teammates do the same not too long after him was just as exciting. “It’s especially incredible because we were struggling last year,” Peckham said. “We were such a young team, and just to see the growth from all the young guys has been so, so awesome.” He praised the development of junior Ty Elliott, who is from Anchorage, starred at Grace Christian and joined Peckham in earning All-GNAC honors after coming in sixth place. “He improved so much this year, and it’s been awesome to watch,” Peckham said. “We have sophomores like Ben Browning and Sam Roy and Edgar Vera and Anthony Porter who have just been crushing it. It’s really just been cool to see their growth in the sport.” With this being his final year of eligibility, his focus as he forges on into the postseason is just as much centered around giving back to the program as it is adding to his own legacy. “Mainly what I’m thinking about is just getting this younger group of guys to the national meet and watching them compete on the biggest stage,” Peckham said. “I have individual goals at nationals. I want to place as high as possible, and I think that I have a good chance to really achieve some big goals there.” Seven Seawolves are heading to regionals, and he intends to help the team capitalize on the opportunity to develop the next generation of program legends. “Right now, I’m just focused on the team,” Peckham said.
