‘HIDDEN SPEED’

Jarrett LeBlanc ‘Digs Deep’ To Bring In A Mile Under 4 Minutes 

When long-time McNeese track stand-out Jarett LeBlanc returned to his alma mater, he was a man on a serious mission. He wanted to be the first Louisiana native to run a mile under 4 minutes on Louisiana soil.

It was more than a shot at an impressive stat for him. It was important.

LeBlanc is a Louisiana native. He’s immensely proud of his rural Louisiana roots. When he runs, he says, he runs for the entire state.

All that being the case, it’s no big surprise that he came into this Lake Charles race with more than a little trepidation.

“I was more anxious than anything,” says LeBlanc. “Six days out, I could feel the pressure building up.”

Nobody wants to have butterflies in his stomach for six straight days. On the up side, though, LeBlanc says the feeling that he had “swallowed a hockey puck” disappeared the instant he heard the starting gun. During the race itself, says LeBlanc, “I felt very relaxed, like it was just another race.”

His “only concern” he said, was the wind. As a seasoned McNeese runner, he’s used to the strong Gulf wind that “goes in up Common [Street] and says, ‘There’s the McNeese track.'”

He ran with pacers on the first two laps, which helped him with that adversarial wind. But — due to the position of the track — in the last 150 yards of each of the last two laps, he was running by himself straight into the strong Gulf wind.

“I managed to dig deep,” he says. And while the run was no doubt exceptional from the start, for a brief stretch there, it looked as if LeBlanc might not break the mark. As he started the fourth lap, he could see on the clock that he was at 3.01. He quickly drew the obvious conclusion. He’d have to bring the last lap in at under a minute.

“I kicked it for the last 300 yards as if I were [in the finishing stretch],” says LeBlanc. As he ran, he somehow managed to count down the seconds along with the clock. “I counted right down … 3.56. 3.57.”

As he finished the race, Jared saw the clock register 3.59. He thought it was quite possible that he had finished at a “flat 4.”

It wasn’t until McNeese Track Coach Brendon Gilroy announced the time, and pronounced the word “three,” that Jared and everyone else knew the Louisiana record had been shattered. After Gilroy said “3,” everything that followed was drowned out by applause. LeBlanc was part of the chorus of approval. “I let out a huge yell,” he says.

“Everyone treated that race like I was their son,” says an appreciative LeBlanc. “I’m still getting calls from across the state.”

For LeBlanc, it wasn’t just that the mile was less than 4 minutes. It was also that the mark was set in his home state of Louisiana, and that it was a record for the state and for a Louisianan. “That was just a lifelong goal that needed to happen,” he says.

“There’s still more to come,” he says — a bit of an understatement for a young athlete who’s strenuously preparing for the next two Olympics games.

His 3.59 mark in Lake Charles, was, says LeBlanc, the result of “everyday training that people don’t see.” The results of the race will, he says, give him the confidence he’ll need as he transitions into longer races for the Olympics. It’s also an indication that he’ll have “hidden speed” that he’ll be able to use as needed in distance running.

Because a record-setting run on Louisiana soil was so important to him, LeBlanc’s race in Lake Charles generated the same sort of intense pressure he’ll one day experience at the Olympics. He demonstrated quite authoritatively that he can perform with grace under pressure. That’s a strong indicator of a successful career — and perhaps one with a little gold in it.