Mile relay just the beginning
GILROY — Normally an event reserved for anyone with energy left at the end of a track and field meet, the 4×400-meter relay has instead been a focal endeavor for Alex Meldrum, Ralph Jackson, Tim Cavanaugh and Alan Rios.
The latter three have mainly invested in their individual events this spring — Meldrum the 300-meter hurdles, Jackson the 400 meters, Rios the 800 meters — but have put equal onus on the mile relay.
“Last year, we basically interchanged six guys for the 4×4 each meet. It just depended on who wasn’t tired,” Meldrum said Wednesday at Sobrato High School. “We knew we were going to be the group this year. We all love running and we take pride in trying to be the best out there.”
That might be why this swift Sobrato foursome has clocked a personal-best time in each of its last four races — and why it will line up next to the top 4×400 relays around tonight in the CIF-Central Coast Section Finals meet.
The top three finishers advance to CIF State Championships, held June 5-6 in Clovis.
“We knew we could go this far. We’re a confident, competitive group,” Jackson said. “We’re thinking we can handle anybody.”
These Bulldogs have done just that this season, placing second in the Santa Teresa Finals in three minutes, 28.97 seconds, and third (3:27.52) in the Blossom Valley Athletic League championships.
“We get better each time,” said Cavanaugh, the team’s senior leader. “We keep working harder every single week in practice. We’re all dedicated.”
Rios, the anchor, and Meldrum also will be running their individual events earlier this evening.
“It’s going to be tough to save up,” said Rios, who’s seeded No. 3 in the 800. “I just have to give it my best anyway. In the 800, you can’t hold anything back.”
Meldrum said the relay’s only weakness is hand-offs, which is understandable considering Rios, Meldrum and Jackson made the cut for last Saturday’s CCS Semifinals in their own events – on top of the relay.
“They’re all great runners,” Sobrato sprint coach Fred Rios, Alan’s father, said. “When your mile relay does well, it shows the depth of its ability. You have four strong individuals in each of their leagues; Alex is a top hurdler, Alan is a top 800 runner, Ralph is a top 400 runner, and Tim is our veteran in the group. He’s a steady performer.
“They all knew they were going to excel by the end of the season and they’ve proved what they can do.”
At the moment, the four are savoring another chance to run under the lights at Gilroy’s Garcia-Elder Sports Complex. It brought out the best in them Saturday, when they advanced with a seventh-place time of 3:26.69 seconds – second fastest in their heat.
“There’s going to be a lot of buildup,” Alan Rios said. “I think anybody that knows track knows that the 4×4 is, probably, the best event; one of the most exciting. Since it’s the last event, it’s the biggest event.”
Added Meldrum: “The white stripes on our uniforms are going to shine even more under the lights.”
When his prep career began, Alan Rios didn’t choose to run the 800 as much as the 800 chose him. Trained as a long-distance runner in middle school, Rios was coaxed by his father to try the 800 early in his freshman year.
Soon, Alan Rios had one of the top-five fastest times (1:58.75) among freshmen in California.
“I said, you’re only doing the 800 from now on,” Fred Rios recalled. “It just clicked for him.”
That wasn’t always the case the following year, though, as Alan Rios went through a late-season bout with walking pneumonia that handcuffed a potential run to CCS Finals.
That he was one of the state’s top-five fastest sophomores only made his exit at semifinals more humbling.
“He always felt like people thought his freshman year was a fluke because he dropped off,” Fred Rios said. “He’s been at it since December; he’s kept that in mind in training.”
Alan Rios’ leg speed and endurance came together by midseason, and the junior was on his way to winning a division title in the 800, placing third at BVALs and making the cut for today’s Section Championships
“It feels so good right now, especially after everything went wrong last year,” said Alan Rios, whose 1:56.10 at semis was the fifth-fastest time in the section this year. “I was disappointed with myself, but now I’m back on track and proving myself again.”
He could have one more meet in store this season. Alan Rios is set to run in an eight-person field that was separated by less than three seconds Saturday. He will try to keep pace with Pioneer’s Nathan Strum, who beat him by eighth hundredths of a second.
“It’s going to be anybody’s game,” Alan Rios said. “I’m not counting myself out. Just because I’m the third seed, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be one of the guys going to state. You can’t just be the fastest. You have to race the best.”
Racing seven hurdlers who finished within two seconds of each other at Section Semifinals, Meldrum knows his fate today could come down to simple mechanics.
“It’s all about hip flexibility,” the senior said. “I have to take it slowly through the hurdles and make sure I don’t tweak anything.
“Even with the top racers, anything can go wrong. There’s eight hurdles, and if you make one mistake, that screws up the whole race.”
The favorites are Archbishop Mitty’s Jeffrey Campbell, Everett Alvarez’s Mike Skinner and Gilroy’s Peter Guenther. Meldrum finished just behind them Saturday in 40.22.
“It’s a great way to end my senior year, going this far,” Meldrum said. “I’m with the best.”
