Senior James Thurn is making an unusual transition.
The cross country runner who ran the 400-meter hurdles for the past seven years is about to take on the daunting 800-meter run.
“It’s not a typical request,” said LSU head coach Dennis Shaver. “Typically the athletes want to move down in distance, not specialty.”
Thurn ran at the University of Buffalo as a freshman, placing sixth in the 400-meter hurdles at the Mid-American Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships before transferring to LSU.
In 2010, Thurn finished seventh in the 400-meter hurdles during the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships, scoring two points for the Tigers.
“I came to LSU to run [400 meters] and everything was great, but when I look at my body, 800 meters has always been appealing to me,” Thurn said.
Thurn’s conversion comes with a new group of training partners, as 400-meter hurdlers train with quarter milers and sprinters, while 800-meter runners train with distance runners.
“It’s a higher volume training with less intensity, which is probably more suited for him,” Shaver said.
This entails spending the fall offseason running with the cross country team and distance coach Mark Elliott.
“In my experience over the years, James is not the first to switch from one group to my group and try a different event,” Elliott said.
Elliott and Shaver said he asked to switch during the summer and will be strictly an 800-meter runner during track, given the transition goes smoothly.
“It’s my senior year so I decided, ‘Let’s just give it a shot, stop hurdling, and see where this takes me,'” Thurn said.
Thurn said he had always been told he would excel at the 800-meter run but wouldn’t put his focus on it because he was a hurdler.
Thurn said he competed in the 800-meter run once in high school, winning in 1:56, but regularly ran the 600-meter run during indoor track, finishing sixth in the New York Indoor State Championships. His personal record for the event, 1:21.27, converts to somewhere around a 1:53 800-meter time, which would  place him in the national elite.
“I have natural endurance, like my body is meant for this,” Thurn said. “I’ve always had a really good endurance base where I can go run miles like it’s be.”
 
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Contact Andrew Chapple at [email protected]