Luke Marsanskis, a 2019 Greely High graduate, became the first cross country from the University of Maine to compete in the NCAA championships since 2013. Photo provided by UMaine athletics

When Luke Marsanskis began to take running seriously, and the post-concussion symptoms that kept him from training for 13 months subsided, that’s when everything took off. That’s when Marsanskis became a runner, rather than a guy who runs.

“In high school, I wasn’t quite as good a runner as I am now,” said Marsanskis, a 2019 Greely High graduate who competes on the University of Maine cross country and track and field teams. “I didn’t take it as seriously.”

After feeling like his running career might be over, Marsanskis is certainly taking it seriously now, and it shows in his results. On Saturday, Marsanskis placed 97th in the NCAA championship race in Madison, Wisconsin. He was the first Black Bear to qualify for the NCAA cross country championships since Kelton Cullenberg in 2013.

If 97th place doesn’t sound impressive, look at it this way. Two hundred and 55 runners started the race. The top 40 become All-Americans. The difference between earning All-American status and the middle of the pack – where Marsanskis finished in 29:54.1 – is measured in seconds over the race’s 10 kilometers. Marsanskis finished 29 seconds out of 40th place. A slightly quicker pace, and he might’ve been the Black Bears’ first cross country All-American.

He has no regrets. Marsanskis – a graduate student – wasn’t familiar with many runners in the field. He had raced against a few, including Harvard’s Graham Blanks, who won the national title with a time of 28:37.2, and knowing this would be his only opportunity to run in the national championships, Marsanskis decided to just go for it.

“I was in a box next to Virginia and New Mexico (at the starting line) and knew their top runners were contending for the title, so I went out hard and tucked in behind them for a bit and then hit a wall,” said Marsanskis, who has his degree in mechanical engineering and is currently working on a masters in data science.

Through 2,000 meters, Marsanskis was in 48th place. That wall he hit, the piano on his back and fireplace poker in his guts, dropped him to 116th place at the 6,000-meter mark. Down the stretch, he rallied, fighting back to run the final kilometer in 2:52.6, his best split of the race.

“The rest of the race was the most painful experience I can remember,” Marsanskis said. “With 2-3K to go, I got a second wind and started moving up with a Stanford and a Syracuse runner and ended up passing a good number of people  … If I went out a bit more conservatively maybe I could’ve finished higher, but I didn’t see a point of running a race if you’re not going to put yourself in a position to compete for as long as you can regardless of the competition. I did that (Saturday) so overall I’m happy with the experience.”

Considering Marsanskis went more than a year, from March 2022 to April 2023, without training due to post-concussion syndrome, he’s pleased to be competing at all.

Luke Marsanskis. Photo courtesy of UMaine athletics

“When I got here in the fall of 2022, he wasn’t even running,” said Adam Ward, Maine’s cross country coach. “We had to be really patient. The talent was there. He’s made a huge jump in the year and a half I’ve been able to work with him.”

Marsanskis suffered a concussion in a freak weight room accident, when he stood up quickly and hit his head on a bar. At first, doctors told him he may experience symptoms for seven-10 days. Headaches, fatigue.

“Seven to 10 days became a few weeks, to months to ‘I don’t know,’ ” Marsanskis said. “I still have them now. Maybe I’ll have them the rest of my life.”

They symptoms subsided enough for Marsanskis to get back into training and racing, and finally really apply the lessons he learned from watching former UMaine teammates Jacob Terry and Sam Mills. Terry and Mills worked hard everyday, and Marsanskis saw the results. He’d been Class B outdoor state champ in 2019 in the 3,200-meter run, and the indoor champ in the 2-mile, but it wasn’t because he was outworking the competition. Marsanskis finally saw what the combination of hard work and innate talent can do.

The spring of his freshman season, the coronavirus pandemic shut everything down. Marsanskis used the forced alone time to run.

“I was thinking, I might as well workout,” he said.

A year ago, Marsanskis placed fourth at the America East cross country championship. Then he set the Maine team record in the indoor 5,000, then the record in the outdoor 10K.

“We sat down last cross country season, and he said he’d like to increase his work volume,” Ward said. “He’s up to 100 miles a week now. That increase and confidence has been incredible. Last spring he was breaking record after record, and he’s asking for more.”

Marsanskis kicked off the season as the top Maine men’s finisher in the Beach to Beacon 10k, finishing two seconds off Ben True’s 15-year old record for Maine men.

Marsanskis recently won the America East Championship with a time of 23:51.8 on the 8k course before taking seventh at the NCAA Division-I Northeast Regional with a mark of 30:07.5 at the 10k event.

Now, the indoor track season is ahead, and the outdoor season beyond that. That’s two more national championships Marsanskis can work to qualify for. And not just him.

“I told all the younger guys, it can’t be Luke makes it this year and then it fizzles out,” Ward said.