Dawson City runner Jack Amos earned a bronze Thursday in the under-20, 5,000- metre run at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa.

Amos of Athletics Yukon described the race as super slow but quite tactical, as longer distance races sometimes are.

While his time of 15 minutes, 23 seconds and 674 one thousands of a second was more than eight seconds back of the winning time posted by Perron Trudeau of Montreal, it was much closer between second and third.

Amos recalls how he made a bit of a strategic mistake when he passed silver medalist Andrew Davies instead of staying on his tail and forcing the matter in a sprint at the end.

“I tried to gap him,” said Amos, who turned 17 the day before the race. “I looked back and I thought it was going to work but he had a really good last 50 metres that I was not expecting.”

Davies, a Windsor, Ont., runner, crossed the line just over half a second ahead of Amos.

Like much of Ontario and Quebec last week, Ottawa was in the grips of a heat wave when Amos ran the race but he said even though it was really hot, he doesn’t think the 30-degree temperatures and high humidity affected his running.

Amos has been going to high school in Victoria and training under coach Bruce Beacon of the Prairie Harriers Youth Team.

He’s back in Dawson catching up with family time and working for the summer backstage at the Diamond Tooth Gerties, and as a lifeguard and swimming instructor.

Whether Amos was going to attend last week’s national championships wasn’t confirmed until early last month when he ran a 15:13 in the 5,000 at a track meet in Portland, Ore.

“We said OK, it’s going to be worth me going.”

Because there is no 5,000 metre event in the Under-18 category at the championships, Amos had to move up an age class to the Under-20 in order to compete in the 5,000.

He’ll be in Coquitlam, B.C. this coming weekend to run the 1,500- and 3,000-metre races at a provincial meet for track and field clubs.