RYAN CROSON: LOVING THE CHASE

By Washington Huskies

March 29^th, 2018

Ryan Croson has always been a chaser.

Chasing and achieving a dream of running collegiate track. Chasing and setting new personal records. Croson now is chasing the fastest quarter milers in the Pac-12 with a goal to become one of them.

And he’s closing the gap.

“I certainly want to keep on the same trajectory that I’m on right now,” said the junior after practice one day during the brief break between the indoor and outdoor seasons.

“The biggest difference from last year to this year is mentality. Our workouts are the same, the coaching is the same, our scheme is the same. But this year now that I know what to expect, rather than learning and being timid, I attack everything. I go at it and give it a hundred percent every day. I try not to cut corners, because it’s the little things that add up in the end.”

Now in his second season working with Husky sprints coach Eric Metcalf, Croson is seeing what the addition of those little things can equal. His indoor season was highlighted by a new career-best time of 46.84 seconds at the MPSF Championships where he was fourth behind the three fastest 400m times in the history of Dempsey Indoor, all set by USC runners. Croson then anchored the Husky 4x400m relay to the MPSF title. His indoor PR ranked him fifth in school history, and was significantly faster than his best outdoor mark a year ago. To make the Husky outdoor top-10, and become the first new name on that list since 2011, Croson will need another PR of at least 46.40. But the biggest reason for Croson’s improvement this year is because he has stopped thinking in terms of times.

After a strong freshman season that saw him make the Pac-12 final, Croson did have a small PR as a sophomore but he wasn’t being the “fluid runner” he needed to be.

“I started thinking about times and qualifiers instead of just focusing on competing and running fast,” he says. “I ran tense a lot last year and that’s what we’re trying to get away from, and get back to just trying to win. At this level where everyone’s a stud if you go for the win, your time will be fast, instead of trying to race the clock that puts a lot of unnecessary stress on you.”

A transition year that many sprinters go through as freshmen came during that sophomore year, as Croson learned and adjusted to new training once again in Metcalf’s first year.

Croson is a student of the sport and would pepper his coach with the big practice question: Why?

“I like to know, hey, why does this workout hurt? Or why are we doing this a certain amount of days before a meet? Questions that he has answered this year which I’m thankful for because that helps me understand the big picture. I feel like we have a great relationship.”

The success indoors has Croson in position for an exciting outdoor season where he will try to break up the Trojan pack on the podium once Pac-12s arrive.

“The goal hasn’t changed,” says Croson, “I think I can get top three. It’s certainly humbling to see that the human body can move that fast around the track, and it’s good for my perspective, so I don’t get too high on myself but that I’m also not putting myself in the dirt either. It’s a great goal to shoot for.”

In addition to the personal goals, Croson has big aspirations for the Husky 4x4 relay, a group that showed impressive depth indoors with six different runners combining to post a pair of 3:09 times. The Dawgs advanced to NCAA West Prelims a year ago in the relay, and that trip provided some good experience while leaving them wanting more.

Croson says, “That fire is certainly burning in all of our stomachs. We don’t really want to go there, we want to get past there,” and reach the NCAA final site.

The relay also provided the moment that Croson calls the most fun he’s had a track meet in his entire life. In the dual meet against Washington State last year, everything on the men’s side came down to whoever won the 4x4 would win the meet. The Cougars got out to a big lead, but then-junior Michael Thomas made it all back on the third leg and passed to Croson with a slight lead on the anchor.

The memory is still vivid for Croson who remembers, “As soon as Mike got the baton, I was like, ‘We got this. He’s going to roll him up.’ Because he was out for revenge because WSU’s third leg got him in the open 400. So I knew Mike was going to put something together and close hard, which he did. As soon as I got the baton I didn’t give it a thought and I didn’t worry about it. Crossing the finish line and having the teammates gas you up all around, it was absolute euphoria.”

Throughout his whole Husky career, Croson has been grinding through practice day-in, day-out, with two seniors, Thomas and Jacopo Spano.

"I love running with those guys every day," Croson says. "Mike coming down from his career 800-meter strength, so when we do longer stuff he pulls me though, and then I've got Jacopo to chase in the quick stuff, so it's been sweet."

The combination of the individual and team aspects is what made Croson decide to give up baseball and commit to track early in his time at Bothell High School.

"You've got to control what you can control, and I like that aspect. It's a good taste of both worlds," Croson says. You've got to focus on you when it's race time, but you have buddies that have been through the same training and the sam pain as you."

Jumping to fifth on the indoor top-10 list had a little extra meaning for Croson, as he moved one spot ahead of- by .02 seconds- the person he credits most for getting him to where he is in the sport: his high school coach B.J. Dawson.

Dawson lettered for the Huskies from 1995-98, and he earned All-American honors as a senior as he helped the 4x400m relay take eighth at NCAA Indoors, and he then anchored the group that won the first and only Pac-12 (than Pac-10) 4x4 relay title in the school history.

Helping Bothell win the 4x100m relay state title as a sophomore was an eye-opening experience for Croson. "That's when we started getting serious about it," he says.

"My coach, B.J. Dawson, he said you have a future in this, I see a lot of myself in you, you can certainly do this at the next level, but he said the way you're going to do it is though running the 400."

Croson took the challenge head on and won a state title in his first year running the distance and was runner-up as a senior. Dawson helped get Croson to his alma mater, something he took a little extra pride in.

"I still talk to (Dawson) fairly regularly, because he's yet to see a product of his come through UW again and run fast, so he's been a major supporter for sure," Croson says.

Croson has also worked at striking the balance between competition and the classroom. By his own admission, Croson didn't study much in high school, so the jump from high school to college was more daunting academically than athletically. An early success came in an English composition class and that became an early model, even though Croson would choose to major in Biology.

"I never considered myself to be a good writer or comprehensive reader, so freshman year when I got a 3.5 in English, I was super pumped," Croson recalls. "Because my whole life I had dreaded writing, so the act that I got a good grade in that class was huge for me. That class also helped me develop a study routine which I still use today."

Croson's focus within his Biology major is human physiology, and somehow he wants to stay involved with sports. He could find himself on the receiving end of the "Whys?" that he currently posses to his coach.

But for now, the chase is on.

"The 400 is 99-percent mental. You have to want it, which is a little crazy to want the lactic acid pain that the 400 brings, but you kind of have to psych yourself out for it and just attack it. From a technical standpoint, the start is not as crucial as in the one-hundred but that's where I believe I can improve the most. Then I got sloppy on the homestretch, so working on being able to finish composed and with good form."