Paul Beaulieu

Paul Beaulieu started his track and field career in the 7th grade as pole-vaulter at Granby Jr/Sr High School.  He’s been told he once cleared 7 feet but does not remember that audacious event.  At 5’4” tall and 105 pounds soaking wet, he quickly figured out that he had better try a different event.  Encouraged by his older brother Rick, he went out for cross country in the 8th grade and never looked back.

 

By his junior year (1977) at Granby, Paul had won both the indoor and outdoor Western Mass mile titles and set WMass records at both. He repeated that feat again in his senior year, 1978, by winning both indoor and outdoor mile runs and setting the outdoor Western Mass Championship record of 4:16.0, which still stands today. 

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In his junior year at Granby High, Paul also captured the state title and the New England 1500-meter title at the New England Meet of Champions. Paul went undefeated in the mile in Massachusetts during his junior year. As a senior he finished second to Chelsea’s Bobby Goss at both the State and New England Championships. Overcoming a six second deficit at the half-mile mark, Paul barely lost to Goss in a photo-finish at the New England’s. His 4:14.0 that day remains the fastest high school mile time ever run by a Western Mass athlete and, along with Goss’s 4:13.9 run, was ranked in the top 20 high school mile times in the country for 1978 by Track and Field News. 

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Recruited heavily by colleges across the country, including Auburn, Tennessee, Dartmouth, Boston College and Montana, Paul opted to stay close to home and compete for UMass Amherst, under the mentorship of legendary coach Ken O’Brien. 

 

At UMass Paul set university records in the indoor mile (4:04.95) and outdoor 1500-meter (3:48.34) despite sitting out nearly half his collegiate eligibility due to injuries and illness. Still, his indoor mile record stood for 25-years and earned him a trip to the 1981 NCAA indoor national championships at Detroit’s Cobo Arena – one of just 19 Division I runners to break the qualifying standard that year. Paul won three Yankee Conference titles in the indoor mile and outdoor 1,500 meters while at UMass.   His times remain in the top 5 all-time UMass performances in 4 events: outdoor 1500 meters (4th), indoor mile (4th), indoor 2-mile (2nd) and indoor 4x1 mile (2nd).

 

After graduating from UMass in 1982, Paul competed first for the prestigious Coastal Track Club and then for Puma Athletics.  He rabbited a star-studded lead pack at the Riverside Twilight 5-mile that summer, helping eventual winner Greg Meyer (1983 Boston Marathon champion) to an American record. In that race he paced the field through the mile (4:19) and two mile (8:49) before finishing in 10th place, one place ahead of two-time Olympic marathoner Peter Fitzinger. Runner’s World magazine called it one of the most competitive road races in America that year.

Two weeks later, Paul cracked the top 25 at the 7.1-mile Falmouth Road race, outkicking 1996 Olympic marathoner Keith Brantly for a 24th place finish (34:01). Other notable international road racing performances by Paul include top 5 finishes at the Bermuda 10K in 1983, and the SpringBank 8k in London Ontario (1983). Paul set his personal road 10K record in 1983 at the Shelter Island 10K (3rd place) in New York where he finished in 29:30, just 3 seconds back of winner Sosthenes Bitok of Kenya.  His finish ranked in the top 10 times for the Shelter Island run for years and to this day, the 1983 race remains the closest 1-2-3 finish in the prestigious race’s history. Showcasing his range of distances, Paul also captured first place at the Worcester Gazette 10-mile race in 1983.

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Locally, Paul was hard to beat on the road race scene. His record for the Springfield Father’s Day 10K road race (30:28), for example, set in 1982 still stands to this day.  He also set course records in the Springfield 4th of July 5.1 mile race (1982), Greater Springfield Harriers Summer Sizzler 5K and 5-mile distances and the one-mile and 2-mile runs at the Sugarloaf Mountain Athletic Club summer track meet series. 

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Paul earned another New England track title in the winter of 1983 by capturing the USTAF New England indoor 2-mile title in a personal best of 8:42.74. That win earned him a trip to the 1983 USTAF indoor national championships at Madison Square Garden, where he competed in the 3-mile run. His two-mile time was ranked in the top 20 indoor performances in America that year.

 

Paul lives in his hometown of Granby with his wife Karen of 39 years, whom he met while working at the RunnerShop in Northampton. Together they raised a remarkable daughter, Nina, who has a wicked cool gig as a Buyer for New Balance, keeping Paul stocked with great running gear!