nathan tadesse

cross country/ track & field school: North Surrey freshman’s future: Washington State

Motivational theorists love to reference the title of Greg Bell’s book, Water the Bamboo, as the most succinct way to explain how trusting consistent work habits can result in life-altering breakthroughs.

Bamboo needs to be watered regularly, and while it may not grow for years, it can suddenly sprout 100 feet in the span of 10 weeks.

In a figurative sense, North Surrey’s Nathan Tadesse entered the senior year of his high school running career as the patient farmer, trying to believe that endless hours of practice were going to eventually produce a bumper crop of gold medals.

Well, after seasons of watering and waiting, Tadesse not only flourished over his 2014-15 season, he seemed to grow wings and fly.

On June 6, the same day that American Pharaoh ended horse racing’s massive drought in capturing the coveted Triple Crown, the kid with Ethiopian roots was powering himself across the finish line of the 3,000-metre race at the Subway B.C. High School Championships, completing a triple-crown season of his own, one which just a few months ago would have seemed improbable.

“It just means so much,” Tadesse says of winning not only that race, but at the same meet, the 1,500 metres as well. Include his first-place finish back in November at the B.C. high school cross-country championships, and it adds up to the provincial prep middle-distance troika. “That (3,000 metres) was probably the biggest win over my career.”

That is saying a lot when you consider what Tadesse did over a glorious seven-month stretch:

Placed fourth in November at the Canadian Cross-Country championships’ junior division, racing up a full age level.

Finished 10th and was the second-fastest Canadian at the Pan Am Cross-Country championships in Colombia, a meet which crowned him this country’s top cross-country high school runner.

In late March, competed at the IAAF World Junior Cross-Country championships in China.

In Tadesse’s case, an iron deficiency was the cause of his previous inability to post top performances; once supplements were included in his regimen, his times spiked. Yet even he will tell you that success wouldn’t have come without the work ethic he developed in his endless training runs with older brother Ephraim.

Now it’s all come together, because in the fall, he heads off to Washington State University to join the Pac 12’s Cougars.

Nathan Tadesse never stopped watering the bamboo. That’s why, these days, his growth is off the charts.