: Ben Saarel
Year: Senior
School: Shoes & Gear
Location: High School Athlete of the Week
Mile PR: 4:02.72
3200m PR: 8:45.74
Ben Saarel, a senior at Park City High in Utah and last Saturday’s Dream Mile champion at the adidas Grand Prix meet, may have been the unlikeliest of the many upset winners the event has seen over the years. He did not take up running seriously until two years ago. He did not think he would run in college until last year. He did not even have a solid mile time until a month before the race, and he was rated 11th Health - Injuries.
When, despite the high winds and rainy conditions, he roared the final lap in 56 seconds for a spectacular 4:02.72 victory, Saarel reached home in more ways than one: He had lived in New York briefly as a child and still has family in the city.
Fantastic field: It was a tribute to the quality of the field, perhaps the deepest ever for a boys’ high school mile, that even with nasty, 50-degree temperatures and winds kicking up to 30 miles per hour on the backstretch of Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island, six runners broke 4:07 and nine bettered 4:10. (Last year, in excellent conditions, nine runners broke 4:05.) Even with the deep field, Saarel’s margin of victory was 2.32 seconds, one of the largest ever in the event.
Sub-4 washout: In ideal conditions, a sub-4:00 mile would have been almost a certainty. Saarel’s effort in the extreme conditions was probably “worth” a 3:58. Even the giants of the sport, like Olympic 800m champion and world record holder David Rudisha of Kenya, were well off their times in the Grand Prix professional races. Rudisha, whose world mark is 1:40.91, was hoping for a 1:42. He ran 1:45.14.
Size matters: Saarel, an 18-year-old senior, is 6-foot-1 and 160 pounds. The runner-up, Henry Wynne of Connecticut, the national indoor mile champion who also achieved a PR of 4:05.04, is 6-foot-3. Evidently, the bigger athletes could battle the fierce winds. Saarel, whose only strategy was to “see how long I could go with those guys,” was in mid-pack for most of the race, sitting in a “pocket,” as he put it, protected from the worst of the wind.
Cheserek’s finale: Health & Injuries, Edward Cheserek, the diminutive Kenyan from New Jersey, finished his sensational high school career without a Dream Mile victory. After placing fourth in 2011, running 4:03.29 as a sophomore, Cheserek placed 12th last year in 4:07.29 and third on Saturday in 4:05.36. Cheserek, 19, will now prepare for his college running at the University of Oregon.
Needs speed: With his fourth place in the Foot Locker cross country nationals last December, and 8:45.74 Arcadia Invitational 3200m victory in April in California, Saarel considered himself a “pure” distanceman who lacked the quickness to mix it up with the nation’s best milers. Even a 4:08.55 mile victory at the Mt. SAC Relays in California in April did not convince him. At the Utah state meet on May 17–18, however, Saarel showed his speed with a 4:07.95 state record 1600m win after a pedestrian 2:07 first half. He also won the 800m in 1:51.13. “That got me used to the intensity of the mile,” he said.
School trips: While Saarel attends Park City High, situated at 7,000 feet, he lives in Salt Lake City, a 35-minute trip. He said that he does most of his training near his home, at 4,400 feet, because the higher elevation in the mountains makes quality work too difficult.
Moving target: Saarel lived in Ohio, in addition to New York, before moving to Utah in fifth grade. He played a lot of soccer before starting cross country as a high school freshman and then track as a sophomore. Saarel was pretty good right away, running a 4:17.86 1600m that first season. Last year as a junior, he ran 4:16.88 (about a 4:18 mile), which means that Saarel’s time on Saturday represents almost a 15-second improvement in one year.
College plans: As recently as a year ago, when someone asked Saarel about college, his reply was, “College? I’m not going to run in college.” He began to think differently after his top-drawer cross country season and convergence to highly sought after prospect. A straight-A student (he apologizes for one A-minus as a freshman), Saarel is going to Colorado. The school has the engineering program he’s interested in, Boulder has the mile-high altitude he prefers, and coach Mark Wetmore and the Buffaloes are a perfect fit, he said.
Beach bum: One of the first things Saarel said after the Dream Mile was, “I have to go graduate and find a beach to lie on for awhile.” It has been a long year — with all the travel to big meets — but where was Saarel going to find a beach in Utah? “I have some family on Block Island, in Rhode Island. Maybe I’ll head out there,” he said. “If not, I’ll have to make one at home in my backyard.”
Marc Bloom’s high school cross-country rankings have played an influential role in the sport for more than 20 years and led to the creation of many major events, including Nike Cross Nationals and the Great American Cross Country Festival. He published his cross-country journal, Harrier, for more than two decades.
