 | | | Senior Adler Faulkner beat both his personal and school record over the course of track season. Photo provided
| | | | | | At the start of track season this past spring, Adler Faulkner had a specific goal in mind.
How specific, you ask?
Try hundredths-of-a-second-specific.
The Acalanes mid-distance runner's personal record in the 800-meter run was 1:54.39. The school record was 1:54:38. He wanted to beat both.
"Going into my senior season, beating the records was my number one objective," Faulkner said. "I also wanted to make it to state, but anything on top of that would just be icing on the cake."
To say that Faulkner had his cake and ate it too would be an understatement. Instead, he devoured his cake on four separate occasions.
In a span of seven days, Faulkner beat the school record four times in as many races, subsequently beating his previous record each race.
"Adler had a really special end of the season," Acalanes track coach Tad Beach said. "He just kept getting better and better, and the way he finished was something I have never seen before."
Faulkner's first record-breaking run came on May 24 in the preliminaries of the North Coast Section Meet of Champions, when he finished with a time of 1:54.36. The next day, he ran a 1:53.92, winning the NCS crown and setting a new school record in the process.
He didn't stop there.
The following weekend, Faulkner competed in the California Interscholastic Federation State Track and Field Championships. In the preliminaries on May 31, he beat his record again with a time of 1:53.69.
Then came the grand finale.
In the state finals - his final high school race - Faulkner set the record one last time, crushing his mark from the previous day by running a 1:51.30. Although he did not win the race, he was still proud of his performance.
"I was so happy after the state meet," said Faulkner, who placed second in the race. "Winning would have been great, but I still achieved my goals, and I fulfilled exactly what I wanted to do."
Now, Faulkner is preparing to take on a new challenge: collegiate track. He graduated from Acalanes in June, and will soon be packing his bags to move across the country and attend Cornell University in New York, where he will continue his track career.
It's an ambitious move for the Lafayette native, but Faulkner is excited for the chance to explore a new area of the country.
"I really think I'm ready to go and have a new experience somewhere," he said. "On the East Coast, I can see more of everything and have a new setting to live in."
Faulkner plans to study engineering at Cornell, and he is exploring the possibility of also pursuing an art degree.
"I have been looking into industrial design, but Cornell doesn't have an industrial design major," Faulkner said. "They have a very strong engineering school and they have a material science focus available, which I am very interested in. They also have a nice art program, and I might consider a dual degree."
Most kids enter college unsure of what they want to do or study. Faulkner is different, though.
He's all about specifics.
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Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA