Fastest Jett in state
Reigning 800 champion shows last season’s state title was no fluke
BRENTWOOD >> Dennis Tracy could not stop talking about Jett Charvet, the Heritage middle distance runner he helps coach.
On and on he went about the state’s reigning 800 champion, who seemingly came out of nowhere to stun a star-studded field at last year’s championships.
The call ended, but Tracy had one more thing to say.
So he called back.
He wanted to add one more element of drama to the story, noting that just two years ago Charvet finished dead last in the 1,600 at the North Coast Section Meet of Champions.
Really?
Yes, really.
Not dead last in the final. Dead last in the prelims, his time of 4 minutes, 35.10 seconds ranking 29th out of 29 runners in the competition.
The 800 that season technically was worse, given that Charvet did not even advance to the Meet of Champions after running 2:05.87 to place 23rd out of 24 finishers at the section’s Tri-Valley area meet.
From those humbling times to where Charvet stands now is — as Tracy put it — pretty impressive.
“He’s one of the smartest runners I’ve ever seen,” Tracy said.
The UCLA-bound Charvet will be back under a spotlight Saturday, running the 800 and 1,600 at the Sacramento Meet of Champions, the high school season’s last big invitational before the start of the postseason competitions.
In the 800 this season, no California runner has gone faster than Charvet, whose winning time of 1:52.60 at the Arcadia Invitational this month ranks No. 1 in the state. Charvet is eighth among California runners in the 1,600 with a time of 4:14.31.
As is typical among elite runners, Charvet is in no rush to declare his plan going into state — the 8001,600 double requires running both events back-toback days on back-to-back weekends — but one thing is abundantly clear:
This season is different than last.
To outsiders, Charvet was not even on the radar a year ago as much of the attention was being paid to Bellarmine College Prep’s Alex Scales, who had a sensational junior year and was the state favorite in the 800, and St. Joseph Notre Dame’s Cooper Teare, who spent much of his senior season trying to break four minutes in the mile.
But unknown to the outside was that Charvet was running elite-level splits in practice, building a base under the guidance of his then-coach Jennifer DeRego (now the women’s distance coach at UCLA) and Tracy.
“The workouts in the beginning of that season, I was doing a lot of longer distances, getting in a lot of mileage, building a lot of endurance and strength,” Charvet said last week. “By the end of the year, when I started to move down the distances and speed things up in my workouts, I was more prepared for the 800.
“I had all that background, that base from running long distances. I always thought I could run those kind of times. I just wasn’t actually going out and running them.”
Charvet definitely waited until the last possible race to show outsiders what was happening behind the scenes. He took third at the NCS Meet of Champions in 1:55.88, then won his heat but had only the ninth-fastest time in the prelims at state, running 1:55.01.
In the state final, Charvet ran the fastest outdoor 800 of his life, 1:51.07, outkicking Scales, who finished second in 1:51.56.
“He didn’t really come out of nowhere,” Tracy said. “I am a firm believer in that you run the times capable of workouts that you do. Why he came out of nowhere is we weren’t sure what his best race was. He was running both the 16 and the 8. He ran a 1:54 at Arcadia in the 4×800 and was a legitimate time because it was a leadoff. Not too many people know about that. Beat everyone in the race except Scales.
“So we knew he was capable of running at least 1:53. But we had been running him in the 16. The goal was just to make the state meet finals and get a medal. Jen said he is going to do the 800. At the Meet of Champions at Berkeley, he wasn’t running all out (in the 800). He had already qualified in the 16.”
A week later at the state meet in Clovis, with only the 800 to worry about after dropping the 1,600, Charvet went all out in the final.
Charvet’s mom, Jennifer, remembers that race well, remembers the coaches telling her that Jett was ready to go fast.
“They had a strategy that they had in mind to beat Scales because we knew he had a great kick and he was the one to beat,” Jennifer said. “Jett just executed it flawlessly and surprised everybody. It was kind of like he could, but who knows if he really will?”
Now the roles are in a way reversed. Charvet is the hunted, even more so after he ran the 800 in 1:50.91 at the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet in New York in March and then won Arcadia.
But Scales is still there, still in the picture, still capable of turning the tables back in his favor. The Bellarmine star ranks sixth in the state in the 800 (1:53.46) and also sixth in the 1,600 (4:13.87).
“He’s a good rival,” Charvet said. “I like racing against him.”
Charvet, whose full given name is Jettiene, has lofty targets for the rest of the season, aiming to break 1:50 in the 800 and 4:10 in the 1,600.
Tracy said he believes Charvet is capable at the shorter distance but is a little behind in his 1,600 because of the training it took for the New York meet.
“He could break 1:50 in the 8 right now,” Tracy said. “A guy that can break 1:50 in the 8 should run about 4:07, 4:08 in the 16. He’s probably somewhere around 4:12 to 4:10.”
Charvet will have a chance this weekend and more later next month. But can anything possibly top his state race one season ago?
“We still watch it,” Jennifer said. “Just an unbelievable moment for us.”