Seeing is believing for Pasco track star

Peter Gilbert likes to surf the Internet and check out the rankings in his track event of choice -- the 800 meters.

The Pasco junior still does a double-take when he sees his name so high on the list this year.

After two years of having to dig deep to find his name, he takes great pride in only having to scan down six lines before finding this on athletic.net: 6. Jr. Peter Gilbert 1:55.60a.

"That time still surprises me," Gilbert said of his winning run at Saturday's 4A/3A Eastern Regional meet in Richland. "When I ran it, it didn't feel like a 1:55 at all. And how good I felt after surprises me, too."

Gilbert didn't know what a 1:55 run in the 800 felt like because until five days ago, he hadn't broken 1:57 in a meet.

His previous best coming into the season was 1:59.37, and this year it was 1:57.80 set at the Kiwanis Invitational in Hermiston last month.

"Now, I just hope I can do it again," he said Tuesday as Gilbert, the CBL 4A boys runner of the year, readied for this weekend's Star Track state championships at Edgar Brown Stadium.

Gilbert first began running track as an eighth-grader at McLoughlin Middle School to keep in shape for basketball.

He tried all the different events at middle-school meets, but his P.E. coaches noticed how well he ran the mile in class and suggested he try it at a meet.

Gilbert broke the school record and went undefeated in the event that year.

He arrived at Pasco High and won his first 800 race at a four-team Big Nine meet at Edgar Brown.

He quickly discovered, though, that things wouldn't always be that easy.

"That was a very enlightening year," said Gilbert, who was well out of the money at the Pasco Invite and while a regional qualifier, finished last in his heat. "I noticed whole other levels of talent that I never knew existed."

Last year was more of the same. He struggled to break 2 minutes much of the year, doing so finally at the CBL district meet, only to come up short again at regionals.

"I had a really good district meet, then I go to regionals and I choked," he said. "This year, I had the mindset that I was not going to let that happen again."

His coaches noticed the change in attitude.

"The biggest difference this year is his mentality," said distance coach Curtis Paxton. "As a freshman, he was, well, a freshman. His sophomore year, he got a little more confident. But this year, he wants it. He wants to get after it."

That's not the only change, though. Gilbert has filled into his 6-foot-3 frame, weighing close to 190 pounds.

"You look at Peter now vs. two year ago, and he's grown into a man," said Tim Harrington, who also coaches the Pasco distance runners. "You look at kids in the 800. As they get stronger, you see their times drop quite a bit."

Harrington tailored Gilbert's workouts so he would improve upon the middle portion of the race, so he wouldn't lose so much ground that his stellar kick would be of little value.

"That third 200 especially, we worked with him to develop that part of his race and get rid of his unevenness," Harrington said. "Now when he's with people at the end of a race, it's very hard to outkick Peter. He's so strong."

That was on full display in Saturday's 800 final. Gilbert was the lead runner of a pack of five going into the final curve, when he put on a burst that left the other contenders looking as if they were standing still.

Two of them -- Central Valley's Brad Whitley and Mead's Jordan Curnutt -- answered Gilbert's charge and closed to within a half-second of the lead. But Gilbert held them off to become the first Pasco boy to qualify for state in a distance event since Alex Frank placed second in the 800 in 1997.

"I don't know where that came from," Gilbert said immediately following the race.

A few days later, he still wasn't quite sure. He just hopes it'll be there again come 2 p.m. Saturday, the approximate starting time of the 4A boys 800 final at state.

He's gone online again, this time to check out the seedings for the state meet. His qualifying time is third-fastest in the field, and he's only 45-hundredths of a second behind top qualifier Joey Bywater of Lake Stevens.

"This is the last year state is at Pasco, so I'll have more friends and more family who can come. That'll motivate me even more," Gilbert said. "I know deep down I can do it again."