Fred Judkins

“Time to be First”

Fred Judkins was born in May 1944 and attended a one-room school in Upton, Maine, before beginning high school in 1958 at Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. He won the State Class M Cross Country Championship in 1962. He set track records at Gould in the 880, mile and 2-mile and set the Maine 2-mile record.

Enrolling at the University of Maine that fall, he set freshman mile (4:27) and 2-mile (9:39) records in indoor and outdoor track and won the Freshman College Division at the IC4A Cross Country Championships in New York. He followed that with sophomore records in the indoor and outdoor two-mile. In 1964, Fred set record marks of 9:24 and 9:25 in the outdoor and indoor two-mile, respectively, and 4:17 in the mile. That November, he was elected cross-country captain.

During his junior and senior years he first entered road races in Maine, winning one in 1963 at Phillips and two in 1964 at Lewiston and Sugarloaf Mountain. After serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam from 1969 to 1973, Fred returned to the University and began graduate school.

Gradually returning to running, Judkins decided in 1975 to become more serious about racing. After a second-place finish at the 1977 Portland Boys Club 5-miler, Fred scrawled these words across the bottom of a newspaper clipping of that event: “Time to Be First!” In December, he decided to “reach my potential, to give it a go.” Dedicated to daily double sessions in his training throughout that winter, including frequent 10-milers and longer in sub-zero temperatures, he emerged in the best shape of his life. In April 1978, he was the first State of Maine finisher at the Boston Marathon in 2:28:33, his personal record (PR). His other PRs include 10 miles in 51:25, 10 kilometers 31:12, and 5 miles 24:52.

Ironically, he was a four-time second-place finisher at the Bangor Labor Day 5-miler, which passes by his former home. As a measure of his sportsmanship, Fred re-directed the eventual winner of one those Labor Day contests to a missed footpath on the course, but Judkins had no regrets. “Yeah, I’m disappointed”, Fred said, “but I’ll be back next year.”