Sanchez Finishes Second at Arcadia Invitational

Arcadia, CA
April 7^th, 2012

Fairview High School sophomore Rich Sanchez Mile Race at Saturday’s Arcadia, California, Invitational Track Meet didn’t exactly go as planned. As is often the case with the mile, the field reverted to a  “cat-and-mouse” game  where  tactics and winning took precedence over a fast time. Such was the case with Sanchez’s “Rising Stars”  mile race for sophomores and freshman at Arcadia where he hoped for a fast pace and a fast time.

But his plans to draft the leaders through a 65 second quarter mile were quickly changed when he found himself reluctantly leading the pack through a leisurely 69 second quarter – a full four seconds off his planned “split”. Things didn’t get much better through the half-mile – he trailed the leader, Skylar Williams of Davis Utah, in 2:16 – now a full 6-seconds behind his race plan.

“I was planning on going out a lot faster,” said Sanchez. “I was planning to just hang with the lead pack and running maybe like ‘64’ (seconds) for the first lap. I was planning on running pretty ‘even-splits’ but then I was kind of nervous so I kind of based it off of what everyone else was doing.”

Fortunately, Williams pushed the next lap to 63 seconds, helping Sanchez pass three-quarters of a mile much closer to his original race plan.

“I didn’t really want to take the lead so I just hung in for the first two laps which were really slow. I saw that one guy (Williams) going and I felt pretty good so I latched on.”

In the meantime, fellow sophomore Nathan Rodriquez (Corona del Sol, Arizona) stalked Williams and Sanchez until the final turn where he past both decisively. Sanchez dogged Rodriquez around the turn and passed Williams but couldn’t close the 5-yard gap on the leader.

“I thought it was over (when Rodriquez passed), but I kicked and got that guy (Williams) in front of me. I still felt that I lot left in the tank.” Sanchez’ second place time was 4:22.79 – the equivalent to a 7-second PR for the more commonly raced 1600-meters.

Evergreen senior Maura O’Brien finished 6^th in her mile (4:18.44) earlier in the day and Sanchez’ Fairview team mate, Zane Jeffres, finished his 400-meter race in 51.87 later in the afternoon