Cal/Nevadas

Last weekend, Claremont hosted Cal/Nevadas for the first time in school history. Actually the first time a DIII school has ever hosted it.

Cal/Nevadas is a big, mid-season (for us, early season for DI) invitational in which the top 36 entries from ANY college in California or Nevada may run. All running events under 1500m have prelims, with finals the next day.

My odds at sneaking into this meet with a 1:56.low PR were slim. Luckily, UCLA decided to head up to Stanford invite this year, so I got into the meet in what can only be described as a soft year for distances.

I was pumped to run here, as it is one of the measuring sticks of success for our team, but scared at the same time because of the quality of the field. I was in the 4th heat, and wasn't a very high seed - even in my heat.

Top 9 of the 36 entries made finals, so I was just content with sitting back and being pulled to a fast time by some top quality DI runners.


Everything about the meet was intense. The times were fast, the crowd large, and the sound they made larger. Even the check-in procedure was intense. I nervously warmed up, feeling pretty good from taking the last couple of days easy. When it was time, the clerk collected all of the 800 runners, and had us walk behind him, down the practice field, onto the track, and around the bend to the start line as the respective cheers for teammates already started.

I felt like I was being paraded about. It was pretty awesome (in the literal sense).

I had delayed my warm up a tad, because I was in the 4th heat of 4, so I had probably an extra 10min before my heat from the first one. As the heats are running and I being to spike up, I'm noticing that the times are relatively slow for the caliber of the field. There's a gnarly wind on the back stretch, which deterred leading by a lot of the top guys.

The sneaking suspicion that I might be able to sneak into the final on time crosses my mind briefly, but I dismiss it as a pipe dream and focus on my race.

As the gun goes 1:45.0 runner Charles Jock burst out in front, the pace light for him but harsh for me - someone 11 seconds his junior

I go through in 56.1, perfectly on what I wanted to do. As we head around the front bend and onto the backstretch for the second time, I move up to get on the inside. With 250m, I decide to go. Hard.

I hammer up but am held off by a few of the better runners, who cover my move well. I sit in 4th place going into the bend: 1:24.5.

Ouch, a little quick for the 3rd 200.

I start to fade in the last 100m, but hold on alright and dip under 1:56 for the first time, totally spent. 5th in my heat, but still happy with the time as that was the goal going in. I made some mistakes in tactics, so I know I can improve. A good day.

As I gather my things and walk across the field, back to the warm up area, I hear over the loudspeaker:

"The four winners of each heat move on plus the 5 next fastest times, which are Johnathan Evans from Long Beach State, Rusty Parker from UC Santa Barbara, Cameron Mitchell of UC Irvine, Dustin Harris of UC San Diego..."

a pause.

"..And with a nice PR, Quinn Chasan of CMS rounds out our qualifying spots in 9th."

I can't believe it. Seriously. I had to check the results. I run off, looking for someone to hug.

Oh, and I came back the next day and got obliterated by a rested up DI field.

The glimmering tastes of success are the reason I run.

I slept like a baby that night.