Time just was not on Chris Derrick’s side.
The 25-year-old Derrick, a Neuqua Valley graduate, is one of the most decorated distance runners in the country. In 2015, he became just the second athlete to win three consecutive USA Cross Country Championships.
When Derrick placed fourth in the 10,000 meters at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, missing the Olympics by one spot, he seemed a good bet for the 2016 Olympic Games.
It wasn’t meant to be.
Injuries limited Derrick’s training the last two years, and he finished fifth in the 10,000 on July 1 at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore. He was clocked in 28 minutes, 47.24 seconds.
Derrick later took 23rd on July 4 in the first round of the 5,000 meters, missing the finals.
To qualify for the Olympics, an athlete must finish in the top three in their respective event while also maintaining the Olympic qualifying standard for their event.
“I thought he ran very well. He’s just not as fit as he normally is,” said Neuqua cross country coach Paul Vandersteen, who traveled to Eugene to take in the 10,000-meter race. “A lot of it is timing, and unfortunately the timing wasn’t great for him. If he had a couple more months he would have had a much better chance.”
In a sense, Derrick’s finish in the 10,000 was a moral victory.
He had not run Olympic qualifying standard this year, but petitioned to get into the race. Rules state that a committee can let a runner race if they are deemed to have a legitimate chance to make the team.
Derrick’s spot in the 10,000 was approved. He ran two days later. In sweltering heat, Derrick at one point surged into fourth place. Olympic qualifying standard in the 10,000 is 28 minutes flat.
“Hopefully by getting fifth, I redeemed that decision to have me run,” Derrick said. “Running the qualifying standard in those conditions would have been difficult.”
Derrick has been raising the bar since he started running.
Vandersteen remembers a kid who was talked into Neuqua’s summer running program as a high school freshman. A parent’s email read, “I don’t know what kind of runner he will be, but he will be a great addition to your program.”
Derrick went on to win the Class 3A cross country meet as a senior. Derrick carried that success to Stanford, where the 14-time All-American ran a collegiate record 27:31.38 in the 10,000 meters.
“He is what I would call an aerobic monster,” Vandersteen said. “The longer the race gets, the better he gets.”
An Achilles problem, though, first arose at the end of the 2014 and extended into the beginning of 2015. Derrick missed a month of training after the World Cross Country Championships.
He took a month off at the end of the 2015 track season and returned to training in January, but in February a sciatic nerve problem flared in his hip.
“If I had been training before any one of those layoffs it wouldn’t have been a big deal,” Derrick said. “But the combination of those things hurt. Distance running depends on consistent training.”
Derrick thinks he’s returning closer to form.
A member of the Portland-based Bowerman Track Club since college, he runs around 100 miles a week. He’s planning on doing some road races later in the summer, then regrouping in September to start training for the World Cross Country Championships.
Looking ahead four years, the marathon could be in the cards for Derrick. He ran a half marathon this year to qualify for the Olympic Trials, but didn’t run the marathon in Eugene.
“That is probably a couple years off,” Derrick said. “The longer the distance, the more training cycles you want to have behind you.”
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for the Naperville Sun.
