Trevor Brown still doesn’t like running the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.
It’s a grueling event — the toughest in all of track and field, some competitors have told him. A one-lap sprint with 10 hurdles, each 3 feet high, to clear along the way.
“I definitely have a hard time with it,” Brown said Tuesday. “… I’m still dead tired (at the end).”
Apparently not as tired as his competitors.
The CSU senior has posted the fourth-fastest time in the nation by a college athlete and ninth-fastest by any American this season in the 400 hurdles. His 49.85 clocking May 4 at a meet in Laramie, Wyoming, (altitude-adjusted to a 49.64 by the International Association of Athletics Federations) not only broke a 41-year-old school record, it also elevated Brown to the kind of elite level in the longer hurdles race that he’s enjoyed for the past few years in the 110 high hurdles.
“It’s a confidence thing,” Colorado State University coach Brian Bedard said. “It’s him kind of understanding the event more and more as he goes and his willingness to push himself even harder, starting his finish earlier and being super aggressive at certain points. … I think it’s him just growing and maturing in the event.”
While Brown has lowered his school and Mountain West record time in the 110 hurdles by two-tenths of a second this year, from 13.75 seconds to 13.55, he’s taken 1.23 seconds off his best time in the 400 hurdles.
Brown will run both hurdles races this week at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon. He’s seeded seventh in the 110s with his time of 13.55 at the NCAA West Regional two weeks ago in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and 18th in the 400 hurdles based on his time of 50.86 at the regional meet.
He’s the only one of CSU’s four qualifiers for the national championships to make it in more than one event. Senior Jessica Sharbono and junior Kiah Hicks qualified in the women’s discus, and freshman Aaliyah Pete qualified in the women’s shot put. Brown will run in semifinal heats of the 400 hurdles Wednesday night and 110 hurdles Thursday night. Finals in the 400 hurdles are Friday, with the 110 hurdles final Saturday.
Brown finished eighth in the 110 hurdles at last year’s NCAA championships but never has made it this far before in the 400 hurdles, even in 2012 when he won the MW title in the event. The 110 hurdles are all about form, Brown said, while the 400s are all about strength and endurance.
That’s why CSU assistant Karim Abdel Wahab “sold him softly” on the 400 hurdles, Bedard said. It’s a much more difficult race, they knew, than the 300 hurdles he ran in high school while sweeping Colorado Class 4A titles in both hurdles races in 2010 as a senior at Wasson in Colorado Springs. Brown even set a state-meet record of 36.81 seconds in the 300 hurdles that year.
When Brown first tried the 400 hurdles as a CSU freshman, he could barely finish the race, he said. So they didn’t push the longer race as much at first, allowing him to focus primarily on the 110s.
Brown, 5-foot-11 and 180 pounds, got a bit better at the longer race his sophomore year and better still as a junior. This year, “he really put in the effort and really dedicated himself” to it, Waheb said.
It helped, too, the coach said, that over time he’s developed a better understanding of what kind of workouts are best for Brown. They upped the speed and volume of his daily workouts, pushing him a little harder than they ever had before.
His conditioning, Brown said, has never been better. He still prefers the 110 hurdles. But he likes his chances in the 400s now, too. Bedard is convinced Brown can made the finals this week in both.
“He committed himself and bought in 100 percent. I made some minor adjustments in how he trains,” Waheb said. “Both of us did our job, and now he’s stuck with the 400 hurdles.”
CSU’s NCAA qualifiers
• Trevor Brown — Senior from Colorado Springs is seeded seventh in the men’s 110-meter hurdles (13.55 seconds) and 18th in the 400 hurdles (50.86). Semifinals of 400 hurdles are Wednesday, with final Friday. Semifinals of 110 hurdles are Thursday, with final Saturday.
• Kiah Hicks — Junior from Colorado Springs is seeded 24th in women’s discus (172 feet, 10 inches). Trials and finals are Thursday.
• Aaliyah Pete — Freshman from Omaha, Nebraska, is seeded 11th in the women’s shot put (54-8 1/2). Trials and finals are Saturday.
• Jessica Sharbono — Senior from Billings, Montana, is seeded 21st in women’s discus (174-7). Trials and finals are Friday.
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