Bad Timing Could Slow Milers : Local Runners in No Shape to Chase Mark in Jack in the Box Meet

The last time a high school runner bettered four minutes in the mile, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, Ronald Reagan was a first-term governor and the Beatles were at the top of the charts.

Today’s high school runners weren’t even born when Marty Liquori ran the last sub-four-minute mile by a U. S. high schooler. Yet not only has no scholastic runner broken four minutes since, but Jim Ryun’s 1965 national high school record of 3:55.3 looks virtually unbeatable.

The mile record has steadily shrunk since Roger Bannister of Great Britain broke the four-minute barrier in 1954, but high schoolers’ times have inexplicably climbed. The best prep mile this year was a 4:06.1 by Chris Lewis of Mead High in Spokane, Wash.

The Four-Minute Mile Challenge at the Jack in the Box Invitational today will bring some of the top scholastic milers in the country together at UCLA’s Drake Stadium for a concentrated assault on the mark.

Among the elite corps of prep runners in the race are two Valley-area athletes, Bryan Dameworth of Agoura High and Todd Lewis of Burbank.

The event is designed to allow the milers to go all out without worrying about running in other events, jostling in a crowded field or earning points for the team.

“We’re trying to set up a postseason meet to create an atmosphere where people can run close to the four-minute mile,” meet director Don Franken said.

For most high schoolers, however, the meet is an idea whose time has passed. While older runners are working toward the height of the international season, the high school track season has been over for months.

“I think they’re capable of it,” Dameworth said of the four-minute mile. “But it’s the wrong time of year.”

Most of the runners in the event, many of whom will be college freshmen in the fall, are already building their mileage bases for the upcoming cross-country season.

“Actually, if you’re going to run your best time, I’d like to run it in June,” said Lewis, who recently graduated from Burbank and will attend Stanford. “I just want to get through the race. I want to concentrate on the season ahead. I’m more excited about that than the race.”

Lewis has a personal record of 4:09.02 for 1,600 meters, which converts to a 4:10.48 mile. He is ranked fifth nationally in the mile but has lost his racing edge after struggling to a last-place finish in the Keebler Invitational mile in June.

“I’m not in any kind of shape to go a mile,” Lewis said. “I want to run 4:20, but it’s not going to be any record time. I just want to be able to hang in there.”

Dameworth, an Agoura High senior, has been running 80 miles a week and has geared his training toward longer distances. A two-time state cross-country champion, Dameworth was originally slated for the open high school mile, but he asked to be moved into the Four-Minute Challenge.

“I think they were kind of wondering if I could hang in there or not,” said Dameworth, whose 1,600-meter best is 4:15.75. “I think I’m in pretty good shape. I think I can get down there, maybe not four.”

The field for the open mile includes Los Angeles-area runners, among them Brian Gastelum of Birmingham High and Peter De La Cerda of Granada Hills, but the Four-Minute Challenge draws its field from around the country.

Todd Orvis of Albany, N.Y., the third-ranked prep in the 1,500 meters, will compete, as will runners from Connecticut, Utah and Arizona. Francis O’Neill of San Pasqual, the California state 1,600-meter champion and the nation’s second-ranked prep miler, also will run.

Agoura High junior Deena Drossin will run in the girls’ mile. Drossin won the state cross-country championship as a freshman, and she, too, is looking past the meet to the cross-country season.

“I’m just hoping to not totally humiliate myself,” Drossin said.

Several other Valley-area athletes will be competing in the Jack in the Box meet, which gets under way at 4 p.m. Glendale’s Lee Balkin will face world record-holder Javier Sotomayor of Cuba and U. S. record-holder Hollis Conway in the high jump and Encino’s Mike Marsh is in the 100 meters.

Mike Tully of Encino will face a deep field in the pole vault, Darcy Arreola of Cal State Northridge will run in the women’s mile, former CSUN sprinter Alice Brown will run the women’s 100 and Angela Burnham of Rio Mesa High is entered in the girls’ 100.