With four meets to go, the track and field team is racing toward state. 

Head coach Mr. Mikel Rathmann noted that this year has been a rebuilding year after the loss of valuable seniors, for boys sprinting in particular. 

Many athletes have been on the rise, such as senior Sterling Dressel, who set a personal record in the javelin with a throw of 179 feet, 2 inches, placing first in the 5A-1 Northwest Oregon Conference, and senior Sawyer Kerrigan running the fastest 1500-meter time in 37 years with a time of 4 minutes, 9 seconds.

Currently, there are four athletes who rank in the top two in the district across several events. If they, or other members of the team, perform well and finish in first or second place at the district championships, they will qualify for the state meet on May 28. 

“We’ve been trying to find those that rise to the challenge,” Mr. Rathmann said. “Trying to find [someone] who loves track and who wants to continue to improve, because so much of track is loving the sport and wanting to improve yourself.”

While talent on its own is important, true leadership requires a role model who can continue to build community and camaraderie for every member on the team, Mr. Rathmann explained. 

Freshman Phineas Eagar sees community through the support given at meets. 

“There’s a lot of team spirit,” he said. “During the races, we’re always cheering each other on. You know your friends are gonna be there at the start of that last 100 to cheer you on.”

To encourage camaraderie during these meets, Mr. Rathmann requires athletes to stay and cheer on teammates until the last event, he said.

When the athletes are broken down into event-specific groups, it allows Eagar to challenge himself and meet people who have had a positive influence on him and who he would not otherwise have had the opportunity to know, he said.

“I’ve met so many people from higher grades,” Eagar said. 

While community builds the foundation for the team, individual drive and discipline is what pushes track athletes through the most difficult parts of the season according to junior Gabe Gallares.

For Gallares, mid- to long-distance running is where he has thrived.

“Doing mid distance and long distance has taught me a certain discipline,” Gallares said. 

Track not only teaches physical discipline, but mental discipline as well, Gallares said. Distance races require constant focus and awareness, especially when it is easy to settle into an overly comfortable pace.

“It’s kind of easy to fall asleep during a race, where you kind of just settle the pace and slow down,” he said. “So I think something I want to work on is just to keep pushing myself continuously through the race.”

Eagar agrees with Gallares, saying his method to combat decelerating is pack running with teammates who might be more consistent.

“I pick a group that’s a little bit faster than me and just try to hang on,” he said. “I just try to say, ‘Okay, I can’t let these guys get out from ahead of me.’”

By using other runners ahead of him as motivation, Eagar is able to turn competition into a way to stay mentally locked in from the gun to the finish line.

Eagar added that it isn’t just in races where challenges arrive.

“It’s often just the training, being there when you don’t want to be there, the long runs, the workouts,” he said.

During meets as well as practice, Mr. Rathmann said how easy it is for mental blocks to affect physical outcomes. Part of his job as head coach is to help runners on the team work through those obstacles. 

“I’m just checking with the athlete, making sure, if they look like they’re kind of getting a little frustrated, I tell them to pause, do a quick little visualization,” he said.

Mr. Rathmann explained that visualizations can help athletes home in on what success looks like for them throughout the season. While state qualifications and PRs are important and an easy way to quantify growth, he said many athletes define their own success as consistency and real improvement rather than just results. 

For Gallares, success is “where I feel strong for the season throughout the season, where I feel like at each meet, I’m able to give it my best,” he said.

Eagar shares a similar mindset, focusing on growth in multiple areas of his performance. 

At the end of the season, Eagar hopes to be at a place where “I could see improvement in multiple places for this season,” he said. 

Specifically, he wants to work on energy optimization during races and avoiding the ‘JV kick,’ a mistake new distance runners often make where they save up too much energy in the early stages of a race and finish in a sprint.

For Mr. Rathmann, success goes beyond race times. As a former P.E. teacher, he hopes to “encourage lifetime activity,” he said. “I’m hoping that when they leave, they find something that they can do for the rest of their life and enjoy that.”