Noah Beveridge

BOSTON — Ed Hartman’s school-record time in the mile run at Butler High School stood for 40 years.

It was finally broken Saturday — at an odd location.

Golden Tornado senior Noah Beveridge placed fifth out of 12 runners in the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Junior Mile at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

Beveridge ran the mile in four minutes, 16.40 seconds while placing fifth. Fellow Pennsylvania runner Dalton Hengst won the race in 4:10.57.

Beveridge’s time converted to 4:14.91 for 1,600 meters. A mile is actually 1,609 meters. Hartman’s previous school record of 4:16.90 in the mile was set in 1978.

“I still have to break it on an outdoor track, but this feels pretty good,” Beveridge said of breaking Hartman’s record. “Ed Hartman was a tremendous athlete.

“My goal is to run 4:10 in the 1,600 this spring.”

Beveridge wanted to compete in the New Balance event badly. He e-mailed the meet director his resume’ a few weeks ago in hopes of receiving an invitation.

Saturday’s race was by invitation only. The top high school distance runners from the northeastern United States were in the 12-runner field.

“They invite some guys without hearing from them,” Beveridge said. “This wasn’t an application process. I just wanted to let them know I was interested in going up there to compete and I felt like I had the qualifications for it.”

Beveridge owns Butler records in the indoor 3,000 meters and the outdoor 3,2-00. He set the latter mark of 9:07 last season.

Also the 2017 WPIAL cross country champion, Beveridge is headed to Syracuse University in the fall and will compete in cross country and track and field there.

“This race was good preparation for next year,” he said. “I want to run against elite competition all the time. That’s always been my goal and that will happen at Syracuse.”

Beveridge finished less than a second out of fourth place. He believes he could have finished still higher.

“I wasn’t happy with my final 200 meters or so,” he said. “I was in position to finish as high as third. My stretch run wasn’t my best.

“But competing against a field of runners this strong definitely helped me break that record. I knew I wasn’t going to finish first, but I was pushing to place as high as I could.”

This spring, Beveridge is hopeful of lowering his existing record times at Butler as well as breaking the 800-meter mark. John McGee has the record at 1:53.1. Beveridge’s best time to date is 1:54.1.