Auburn senior Patrick Gomez overcame a sub par junior campaign to reach his goal of winning a state title
Patrick Gomez crossed the finish line, entered the chute and did what he normally does after winning a race, he glanced behind him to see just how far back the next runner was. He then turned back around, looked at the ground for a moment to gather his thoughts, and continued to more forward.
Finally, it hit him. He hadn’t just won a race; he had won a state championship.
And achieved a goal.
In a finish that may have been a surprise to some or most, Gomez excluded, the Auburn senior took over the race from favorite Patrick McGregor and held off a late charge from Layton Dorsett to win the Alabama 6A title in 15:50. Dorsett finished second in 15:52. McGregor, an 800-meter specialist with a devastating kick, succumbed to the quick early pace, fading to eighth (16:19).
For Gomez (Photo courtesy of Auburn Sports Shots Action Photography), the victory was the fulfillment of a goal he had first envisioned and set for himself four years earlier.
“It was definitely the highlight of my career so far,” said Gomez, whose Auburn team finished third. “I’m used to doing well in races and running pretty well, but as far as state meets are concerned, I’m used to finishing third or second. Walking out of that chute the guy in front of me is always the one getting the congratulations. When I walked out, people started coming up to me. That was a really exciting moment.”
Gomez has not been only a work in progress since he began running on the Auburn varsity in seventh grade, his introduction to the sport began much earlier, when a babysitter took the energetic third grader to his first race.
This was no one-mile fun run folks. It was a full 5K. A runner was born.
“I was always just kind of the small, fast kid,” Gomez said. “My babysitter knew that I loved to run around. I just kind of fell in the love with the sport after that.”
Normally a frontrunner, Gomez got a reprieve at the state meet when McGregor blasted through the first mile in 4:40, with Gomez three seconds back. The strategy was a welcome break for Gomez, who was used to setting the pace in his previous encounters with McGregor, one of the top runners in the state.
Said Gomez: “He took it out pretty dang hard in this race, so I just sat back and let him do the work. I saw his form start to break down at about a mile and half. It was at that point when I kind of realized I probably had the race.”
Sitting on the leader for nearly two miles, Gomez finally made his move, hammering past McGregor into the lead, then surging as hard as he could for the next 100 meters to take control. It was lead that he would never relinquish en route to his coveted state title.
“The first time I really realized that I could win a state championship was my freshman year,” said Gomez. “I ran a 17:02. I realized that in another three years I would be capable of running up front.”
A more experienced Gomez clocked 16:00 as a sophomore, placing fifth at the state meet. His sophomore track season was as equally impressive with PR’s of 4:22 and 9:31, respectively, for 1600 and 3200 meters. Surely, he was poised to win that state title he had yearned for. He was on his way.
“[My finish as a sophomore] really set it in my mind that I would win a state championship” Gomez said. “It was a goal, and it was something I was never going to back down from.”
Unfortunately, as Gomez found out fairy tales play out on the pages of children’s books or animated feature films, but not always in real life. His spectacular progression as a runner encountered some setbacks his junior campaign.
A broken collarbone, followed by chicken pox and admitted mistakes in his summer training, led to a lack of confidence and fewer results. The best he could muster was season best 16:18 and a two-second improvement in the 1600. Respectable numbers certainly, but not the kind that was going to lead him to the top of the podium.
Something needed to change.
“He just never recovered from his summer training his junior year,” Auburn coach Dan Norton said. “It don’t know if we had too many miles on him or whether it was too intense during that time. He really struggled his junior year to get his legs back under him and race with confidence.”
In hindsight, maybe the setbacks were just what he needed. Instead of sulking, he went to work.
“He’s determined,” Norton said. “He hates to lose. When he doesn’t do as well as he thinks he should have, it drives him to work that much harder. He’s a tremendously determined young man.”
So determined that he wasn’t about to let what he termed a sub par junior season derail his pursuit. He made some important changes and entered the summer completely focused.
The biggest adjustment came in his training. After conferring with Norton, it was decided that there was no need to increase his mileage. More importantly, he listened to his body, as opposed to being a slave to some arbitrary number in his log book, eventually abandoning the log altogether.
“I really tried to focus less on the numbers and just run what I needed to run, and ran based on how I was feeling,” Gomez said. “If I was tired and knew I needed to take time off, instead of worrying about the mileage and making sure I got it in, I would take it easy.”
Heady stuff. And something a lot of runners couldn’t handle. Obviously, the adjustments worked. The result was a happy, healthy and energized Gomez, when he took to the line for his final try at state title run.
“I felt extremely confident,” said Gomez, who will run the Foot Locker South Regional on November 29, hoping to earn a top-10 finish and trip to the national meet in San Diego. “I think it was the most confidant I ever felt going into a big race. Saturday morning I woke up and I just felt like I was untouchable. I really got it in my head that I was capable of doing this, and that if I went out there and hammered like I could, then I would do it.”
“Right now he feels like he can go out and race and be with anybody,” said Norton. “He may not beat everybody, but he can run with everybody and have a shot.”
If nothing else, when he arrives at the South Regional he will have something in common with top contenders such as Matt Sonnenfeldt, Reed Connor, Bill Mathews and Andrew Colley.
They are all state champions. Welcome to the club.