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  Nathanael
Sleight, Miler
Nathanael began and ended his Spring Break
with races. I asked him to
run in the Open Mile at the Seattle Academy Relays, an all-comers race. He was at first
reluctant. He had run a 4:31 indoor mile, and I wanted to
watch him run. His SPU coach said he could run, but not in SPU
colors. I told him his old rival from University Prep,
Hale Shaw (now running for Pomona-Pitzer University)
would be there. But it wasn't until the day of the race
that he decided to go for it. There were scores of high
school runners in the race and three "ringers" (Hale, Nate, and an alum from
Northwest.). The race was exciting as the top three took
the lead. At the start of the fourth lap, Nathanael and
Hale (left) began lapping the field. Hale was on his
shoulder but Nathanael switched on his kick and his win was a
convincing one. The announcer praised his race reporting,
"Bellevue Christian alum, Nathanael Sleight, first in a
blistering time of 4:31."
But the outcome should not have been a
surprise to anyone who knew Nate's earlier times in March.
I'd been trying to find the SPU Track & Field
race schedule and went to the web. To my surprise I saw
"Nathanael" in a news story on the SPU athletics website.
I hadn't even heard he'd run an outdoor race.
March 7, 2009
TACOMA
-- Four different events, four different winners for the Seattle
Pacific men in their 2009 outdoor track debut on Saturday.
 Justin
Felt set a meet record in the long jump, and Micah Grounds,
Nathanael Sleight,
and Chad Meis all finished on top of their respective events on
a day that was more reminiscent of winter than a sign of spring
in the UPS Outdoor Preview at Baker Stadium on the
University
of Puget
Sound
campus.
Felt,
a junior from
Eugene,
Ore.,
flew 21 feet, 10 inches (6.65 meters) in the long jump. That
broke the old record of 21-7 (6.58 meters) set in 2003 set by
Marty Cochran of Puget Sound.
Grounds, a junior (San
Diego,
Calif./Shorecrest HS-Seattle) won the 400 meters in 52.77
seconds. Grounds also placed eighth in the 200 in 23.70.
Sleight, a
freshman (Bellevue,
Wash./Bellevue
Christian HS) took the 800 in 2:04.57.
Meis, a junior (Renton,
Wash./Seattle
Christian HS) combined with Sleight
for a 1-2 finish in the 1,500 meters. Meis hit the wire first in
4:03.74; Sleight was next in 4:11.51.
Falcon freshman Daniel Friesen (Lake Oswego,
Ore.)
was fourth in that event in 4:11.89.
On the last weekend of March, Nate faced another challenge:
representing SPU at the "Spring Break Open" meet hosted by Club
Northwest and featuring many college and club runners. Teams
from Seattle University, Western Washington University, and many
local community colleges were there, and Nathanael was again
entered in the 1500m. It was a cold, rainy day at King's High
School where he had run  so many times (and so well) in
the past.
After
the first 300m, Nate was in about 7th place in the large field,
near enough to the front to still make a move. In the
second lap he moved up to second place and held that until the
start of the final lap. With 400m to go he took the lead,
but was challenged by Sean Messiter, a Club Northwest standout (left).
But with 200m to go Nathanael turned on the gas and took the
victory with a personal best of 4:09.83 (right), just ahead of
Messiter at 4:10.37. [ Historical note:
Way back on May 23, 1991, Olympic hopeful
Messiter ran a 3:41.64 at this same distance in Eugene, Oregon,
when he was 24 years old. Nathanael beat him when he was
42 and still going strong. ]
With April and May still to come, who
knows what Nathanael's first year of college outdoor Track &
Field will produce?
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I took much of Spring Break off. It seemed the best time to take a
holiday -- since that's when the college kids were off.
