Relaxation Is Key; Scott Wins 1,500 : Track and Field: American record-holder in mile leads from start in UCSD Last Chance Meet. Joaquim Cruz wins 800.

Steve Scott is trying to forget about his recent times in the 1,500 and mile. He wants to just relax and run. He doesn’t want to worry about pace.

Funny, though. It is Scott’s pace in the mile every American is gunning for. At 3:47.69, he is--and has been since 1982--the U.S. record-holder.

Subtle things, such as competitors handing him a pen and a shoe and asking for an autograph, remind him of his position. Saturday at the UCSD Last Chance Meet, Scott obliged a fellow runner, who then told Scott he wasn’t finished. He still had the other shoe to sign.

Scott might find it possible to relax during his races, but he’ll never out-run his past.

In a meet he entered “just to play,” Scott gave himself something of a birthday present Saturday. He broke away from the three other runners at the start and easily won the 1,500-meters in 3:44.71 over Dub Myers, a former NCAA champion in the 1,500 while at Oregon and now running for Athletes In Action. Myers finished at 3:51.81.

Scott turned 34 Saturday.

“But I’ve been preparing for it,” he said. “I’ve been saying I’m 34 for the last four months.”

Well, 34 or 24, he had no competition Saturday, which is just as well, because it wasn’t competition Scott was after.

“Today I had my mind set in different patterns,” he said. “I was trying to accomplish different things. The first lap, I was just trying to run under control, trying to get my mind away from splits. On the second and third laps I was trying to concentrate on form. The last 300 (meters) I was thinking about picking it up and driving it home.”

Scott is taking a different approach to his running after a disappointing 1989 season. He used the UCSD meet as a warm-up for the Jack in the Box meet two weeks away in Los Angeles.

He would like to return to top form and win the 1,500 meters there.

“And the only way to do that is if I’m not concerned with time and I’m able to relax,” he said.

In the 800 meters, Joaquim Cruz, an Olympic gold medalist, sprinted past training partner Ocky Clark in the final 100 meters to win at 1:47.00 to Clark’s 1:47.76.

Clark, running an atypical race, took the early lead and set the pace before Cruz kicked.

“He never takes the lead when I race against him,” Cruz said. “But today I was glad he took the lead because he blocked the wind a little bit.”

Cruz is making a comeback from last year’s surgery to repair his left Achilles’ tendon and a resulting staph infection that kept him on antibiotics for 45 days.

The man who once ran a 1:41.7 “about a month after the 1984 Olympics” is still trying to pare down his time.

“Hopefully I can get back to 1:41,” said Cruz, 27.

It is already down more than two seconds from three weeks ago, when he ran a 1:49.14 at UCSD.

But this was a last-chance meet, meaning athletes were supposed to use it to get their marks under qualifying standards for national meets, not warm up for a coming season.

One local college athlete who was trying to make the cut for The Athletics Congress nationals indeed finished under the qualifying standard. Unfortunately, under is bad in the high jump, and Dan Raatjes’ 7-feet-1 was three inches shy.

Raatjes, of Point Loma Nazarene College, was the last competitor remaining when the bar was moved to 7-3, but he hit the bar with his shoulders on the way up on all three attempts.

“I know I can get the TAC qualifying jump,” Raatjes said. “I’ve just got to do it.”

He said he has three remaining meets in which to do so.