by Terry Bernal/San Mateo Daily Journal
As Gerardo Castro looks forward to beginning his Division I track and field career as a transfer junior at Cal next season, he is setting his sights sky high.
A graduate of El Camino, the men’s 800-meter specialist wrapped up his community college career by bringing home the state championship in the event for City College of San Francisco with a time of 1 minute, 52.45 seconds. The championship effort was more than two seconds over his personal record, which he ran earlier in his sophomore season at 1:50.18.
Castro’s goal is knock a second per year off that PR over the next four seasons to reach the Olympic qualifying time of 1:46.00, with his lofty ambitions intent on making the trip to the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
“That’s the A-standard for the Olympics,” Castro said. “So that’s a standard I’d like to hit in the next four years.”
Within the CCSF ranks, Castro’s state title in the 800 was as celebrated as Olympic gold. The title was the program’s first in the event in a decade, since Frances Gadayan — also a Cal transfer — earned his second straight state championship in the 800. It was the first state title of any kind for a CCSF runner since 2009, when Chuncey David-Jacobs took gold in the women’s 200 and 400.
In his 26th year as head coach at CCSF, Doug Owyang said the goal throughout Castro’s sophomore season was to capture the state’s top honor. And, in the spirit of the Olympic season, Onyang put the celebration of Castro’s feat into context.
“I don’t want to say it’s like a gold medal but that’s kind of how it feels to get a state championship,” Owyang said.
It was an honor Castro had in his sights the previous season as a freshman. After being the top 800 runner in the state throughout the regular season, however, an injury to his Achilles tendon prevented him from even qualifying from the state meet.
So, Castro took a different approach to his sophomore season. In the fall, he didn’t compete for the CCSF cross-country team throughout most of the regular season; he did, however, run through the postseason to help the squad in qualifying for the state championships.
But, after a long stretch of focusing his fitness program on bicycling and swimming to take the pressure off his tender Achilles, he didn’t rededicate himself to running fulltime until the outset of his sophomore track season, with a reckoning for the state title his main focus.
“Based on his freshman season … it was something we knew was entirely realistic,” Owyang said. “That was the goal and we felt like he had a score to settle. So that was our goal from the beginning of the year.”
The less-is-more approach was an unorthodox one for Castro, who had been known as the workhorse of the El Camino team through his senior year of high school. After spending his two underclassman seasons on the junior-varsity squad, his junior year was admittedly fairly ordinary.
But then, as a senior, El Camino coach Patrick Holmes tapped into Castro’s potential. And as Castro picked up the pace throughout his final season with the Colts, he peaked at just the right time.
“I was quick (as a junior) but I wasn’t anything super standout,” Castro said. “It wasn’t until the last three weeks of my senior year that I really blew it out of the water.”
Castro reached the podium in the 800 in all three his postseason meets in 2014 — he took gold at the Peninsula Athletic League championships; silver at the Central Coast Section championships; and sixth place at the state championships — and also claimed three gold medals at the PAL championships.
Not only did he top the podium in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 at the PAL meet — the three longest events of the day — he also capped the day with the anchor lap in the 4x100 relay.
“It wasn’t too bad at the time,” Castro said of the ambitious workload, something he had dabbled with in dual meets during the regular season as well. “It didn’t catch me too off guard. I was pretty tired afterward but at the time it was fine.”
Castro went on to earn Boys’ Male Athlete of the Year honors as senior. But he wouldn’t realize his dream of a state title for another two years, this one at the community college level. It was a strange path for Castro, who considered running at either San Jose State or Sacramento State straight out of high school. But once Holmes introduced him to Onyang, Castro knew the CCSF rout was for him.
“To be honest, junior college at the start of my senior year was probably the last thing on my mind,” Castro said. “At the time my main focus was to go to a four-year school.”
Two years later, Castro capped his CCSF career with a valiant finish in the 800 at San Diego Mesa College on May 21.
Running from behind for most of the race, Castro found himself boxed in by a group of runners as worked the final turn of the two-lap race. As he headed into the final straightaway, however, he slipstreamed towards the inside and sprinted past West Los Angeles sophomore Juman Randall to take the lead with 25 meters to go.
The victory punctuated not only saw Castro finish as the No. 1-ranked community college 800 runner. It also capped a sophomore season in which he went undefeated in the event.
“The thing that makes him good is he’s a hard worker, he’s not afraid to hurt, he’s strong and he’s super confident,” Owyang said. “He just has that burning desire to be really good. So that, along with his great athleticism, helped take him to another level.”
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