Arizona track star Carlos Villarreal took a nasty fall after being bumped last Saturday in a race in Seattle. For a few seconds, it wasn’t clear to fans whether he had suffered a severe injury to his side.
Two days later, Villarreal posted on Twitter: “R.I.P. my hip.”
As it turns out, the Wildcat redshirt junior was just kidding on Twitter and, as you know, you can’t keep a good Cat down.
“Carlos is doing great,” said coach Fred Harvey. “He had great training sessions” this week.
On Saturday, Villarreal returns to the same University of Washington indoor track to compete in the mile in “The Last Chance Meet.” It will actually be the next-to-last chance for Villarreal to qualify for the NCAA indoor championships. He and his UA teammates get a final chance next week in the Mountain Pacific championships.
Before the March 8-9 national finals at the University of Alabama, the NCAA will compile a list of athletes with the 16 best times, jumps or throws in each track and field event. They will form the field for the NCAA indoor championships.
At this point, Villarreal is listed 27th with a best time this season of 4:00.39. Both Harvey and distance coach James Li think it’ll take a time of 3:58 or better to make the “sweet 16.” And, they agree that Villarreal is capable of running that fast. In fact, he did so last year.
Villarreal is modest but he’s not lacking in confidence or lofty goals. But it will take not only running fast on Saturday but staying clear of harm’s way.
Last Saturday, the slender, 5-foot-9 Villarreal was breezing along in an early portion of the mile run, hoping to achieve an NCAA-qualifying time. Suddenly, a runner just ahead of him stumbled and fell, causing Villarreal to lose his balance. Then, another runner bumped Villarreal, knocking him to the track. He landed heavily on his right side. He struggled to his feet and finished the race.
Villarreal has had more than his share of ups and downs over the years.
In fact, he just won another honor Thursday for academic and athletic achievement. He was named to the national All-Academic cross country team by the U.S. Track and Cross Country Coaches Association. Villarreal competed in the national cross-country championships last fall. He carries a 3.3 GPA while majoring in psychology and communication.
He began winning laurels in high school as a runner at Rio Rico, where he had moved with his family at age 7 after being born in Puerto Puñasco, Sonora. He was named Gatorade Athlete of the Year for Arizona in both cross country and track in 2014-15. He set the Arizona 1,600-meter record and won the high school mile in the prestigious Prefontaine Classic in Oregon.
Villarreal said he “loves being at the University of Arizona,” being close to home and training with Coach Li, who describes Villarreal as “a good student who likes to joke but who is dead serious about running.”
He was redshirted his freshman cross country season, and then suffered a serious knee injury that sidelined him for a year.
He had a hard time even walking, he said, and “I lost some of my mental sharpness I had in high school” for racing. He came back with a solid but unspectacular season the next year in outdoor track.
In January 2018, he gained national attention with a sizzling final burst of speed to win the indoor UW Invitational in the time of 3:59.65. Two weeks later, he set his personal best by running 3:57.64 at the 2018 Husky Classic.
That performance punched his ticket to the NCAA indoor finals. Many runners would have been thrilled to finish 13th in the nation and to gain second-team All-American honors. But not Villarreal, He was disappointed with his time, 4:06.13. Yet, he “keeps his head high” and will aim for first-team All-American this year.
Citing the need for better consistency, Li said Villarreal is now more mature and stronger to be able to run well at important meets.
Villarreal agrees that with more experience, he is less nervous and “feels more comfortable and confident out there racing with the best. Even when I compete with ex-Olympians, I know I can compete with any of them.”
The mile run was replaced by the 1,600-meter race in the U.S. outdoor track season when metric distances were introduced. But the mile, which originated in England and long a favorite of spectators, was retained in indoor track.
Most indoor tracks are 200 meters long, meaning it takes eight-plus laps to cover the mile distance. (In outdoor track, the mile is four laps.) “Running indoors is harder and a little weird,” Villarreal said. “You are consistently running laps and you can’t accelerate too much on the turns because they are so sharp.”
The track in Seattle was built in the UW practice football facility and is actually 307 meters long, meaning the mile there is traversed in five-plus laps.
As Villarreal well knows, the mile is a race of strength, stamina and mental toughness to keep kicking when your lungs and body aches are yelling at you to stop.
Villarreal says Saturday’s race will draw a strong field and he’s excited to run in the facility where he twice ran a sub-four-minute mile, a feat once considered humanly impossible until Roger Bannister accomplished it in 1954.
He hopes to run professionally after UA graduation and take a shot at running in the 2020 Olympics. And perhaps, someday in the far distance, Villarreal said, he might return to Rio Rico High to take over for his onetime coach, Stephen Schadler. That would complete the circle of where he started his running exploits.
