Runners stage themselves at the starting line ready to run a 1600 Meter Race at Wednesday evening's "Distance Under the Lights" at Hinsdale Central High School (Photo: Michael Newman)

By Michael Newman

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The focus over the next couple of weeks will focus on the performances of athletes that will be going for state championships. Not every athlete gets the opportunity to run in a state meet. There are some athletes that will have their season end in the next couple of weeks in either conference or sectional meets.

Hinsdale Central Distance Coach Jim Westphal came up with the idea of last spring of having a track meet just for distance runners with just two events: the 1600 Meter Run and the 3200 Meter Run. The emphasis was on the 1600 Meter Run with a focus on the non-varsity athletes. The idea was to give the runners just one more chance to go after a personal best in that race. That’s what it is what it is all about anyways. It’s about an athlete finding out how much they can push themselves to achieve that best.

Last year, Lyons Township, Downers Grove North, and host Hinsdale Central were a part of this meet. On Wednesday night, York joined in on this gathering. It is not your average meet. Music is blaring over the speakers pushing runners to a faster beat. Teammates who are not participating are running back and forth across the infield encouraging their teammates to go faster.

There are certain landmark performances that athletes shoot for. We saw that last Friday at the Oregon Twilight Meet when Oregon’s Matthew Maton became the sixth American prep runner to go under 4 minutes for the mile. For the young male distance runner, the one landmark that they will always remember is when they go under 5 minutes for the 1600 / mile. I remember my first time. It was at the end of my freshman year. The fastest that had been able to go all season was 5:10. On the last Monday of practice, Mr. Newton would have a 1 mile time trial for all of the distance runners that were not participating in the state meet. On that warm spring day on what was then a dusty cinder track at York High School, I remarkably dropped my personal best down to 4:58. Do not ask me how I did it. All I remember was going past the ¾ mile in 3:46 and then finding a way to push myself faster than I ever had.

The goal that Westphal came up with for this meet is that there would be many sections of the 1600. Each section would have similar timed runners racing against each other. The last race of the night would be athletes that had run 5:10 or under and had not gone under that magical five minute barrier. The key would be how many could do that.

The first “first-time” runner under 5 minutes in this meet came from Freshman Nick Chudick of Downers Grove North High School. He had been injured most of the season and had not been able to run a 1600 outdoors. He dropped his time down 15 seconds to run 4:48 to win the third section.

The weather on this night was perfect for the distance runner. Temperatures hovered around 50 degrees with the flag on the flag pole barely moving. More than 30 runners in the sections leading up to the final race of the night had run under 5 minutes. At close to 9 PM, the final section of the 1600 set themselves up along the waterfall start. Hinsdale Central’s Blake Evertsen would pace them through this race. Evertsen went under 5 minutes in eighth grade when he was timed in 4:38. Now a sophomore, he is an all-state runner able to run sub 4:20 for the distance.

Evertsen guided them through a 71 second first 400 making sure the pace was not that fast. He would keep turning his head yelling words of encouragement towards the pack he was guiding. The pace slowed down to 2:27 at the 800. With 400 meters to go, the pace for the leaders was at 3:41 with a pack two seconds behind them. This pace would have to pick up if any of the runners would go under that magical mark.

The pace did pick up.

Downers Grove North senior Dillon Murphy pulled away down the homestretch to cap a final 69 second lap to cross the line in 4:50.3. The story of the race came next from his teammate Brendan Lockerby. He had run on the cross country team during the fall. In track, he had done quite well running 52.6 in the 400 and 2:06 in the 800. He was running the 1600 for the first time in his life. He followed Murphy for most of the race finishing second in that section running 4:51.9. This was coming from someone who had never experienced that race before.

“I asked for advice more from my teammates,” Lockerby said afterwards. “They said not to look at the clock and just run the race.”

With the pack going through close to five minute pace with 400 meters to go, it was tough to guess how many would dip under the magical five minute barrier. Runners in that pack found a different gear on the final circuit of the track. Between 12-5 runners behind the two Downers North runners made it under 5 minutes. There was a neat moment in that flurry of runners that were closing to the line with the clock clicking up to five minutes. Five to six Lyons Township runners pushed their way across at 4:59 with all of them going under that barrier for the first time.

Teammates were waiting for them to cross the line and let out a big cheer when they accomplished that. It gave Lyons Township 40 runners under 5 minutes for this track season. Hinsdale Central, York, and Downers North had runners in that pack under 5 minutes. After the races were over, York had moved to having six freshman runners for the season to run 4:50 or faster. The future looks bright for the Dukes.

I watched in awe. What brought me the most joy was seeing kids in these races leaving the finish line area with smiles on their faces.

The motto of my college coach Al Carius of North Central College is “Run for Fun and Personal Bests”. That was demonstrated at its finest Wednesday evening at Hinsdale Central High School. While the focus of most of us will be on the winners in the conference, sectional, and state meets over the next few weeks, every runner that competed in this meet did not leave with a medal, ribbon, or trophy. They did leave that track with the satisfaction that they did their very best. It’s the kind of meets that we need to continue to strive to have to grow this sport. At the same time Wednesday Night in Palatine, Palatine High School was hosting a similar kind of meet. They get it.

In my eyes, there were no losers on this night. No determination of point totals of who finished first and so on and so on. If they ran their best, they were winners.

That’s what it is all about isn’t it?