Hamilton West’s Austin Jenkins runs during a meet in Veterans Park Oct. 15, 2013. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
Austin Jenkins fate was sealed the minute he saw Rocky Balboa take down Apollo Creed.
As the story goes, young Jenkins would watch a Rocky movie on TV, and got so worked up he would go outside and just run all around the yard, zipping around trees and just run, run, run.
“Yes that’s true,” Jenkins said. “I always loved the Rocky movies, and still do today!”
But that’s not the only reason he ran.
“I really believe I have always liked running,” Jenkins said. “When I played soccer as a child I would never complain when I had to run because I knew I could do it easily. My love for running really blossomed when I won my first race at the age of 11. That’s when I really discovered I could be good at this sport.”
This fall, the Hamilton West senior is proving how good he can be, blossoming in his second year of running cross country after having some nice years as a distance runner on the track & field team.
Austin has been an overall winner in two meets – one with Allentown, Ewing and Trenton at Mercer County Park, and one against Pennington and Princeton Day School at Pennington. When he crossed the line at the prep event, no one was remotely near him.
“Both meets I think I led from start to finish, and I love that because my strategy of going out hard and leading by myself really worked in both,” Jenkins said.
That has been a strategy that coach Lauren Baldasari is hoping Jenkins learns to temper in the future, so that he doesn’t burn himself out too early in the race. But considering the small team Hamilton has this year she knows it’s hard for him to do.
“It’s something he still kind of struggles with,” Baldasari said. “He gets nervous knowing how to pace himself, that’s something he really needs to learn. But it’s hard when we have such a small pack.”
Jenkins, however, feels that his strategy can help on the mental side of things, which is a key area in distance running.
“I love to go out hard for two reasons,” he said. “The first would be because I find it so much easier to lead races from the front as opposed to trying to catch up to the leaders in the final mile.
“The second is because cross country is not only about strength in running it’s also based a lot on mental strength. When other runners see me go out at a break-neck pace, most tend to give up on staying with me even before we pass the first mile. My goal is usually to create the largest gap possible between myself and the rest of the field because in cross country it’s almost impossible to catch someone who’s more than 100 meters in front.”
It has been working for him this year. His best time was 16:53 at Veterans Park in his first meet of the season, and the rest have been in the 17s.
“I am very happy with this year so far,” he said prior to the Mercer County meet on Oct. 25. “My goal at the beginning of the season was to get as many wins as possible, and I pretty much succeeded at this during the regular season.
“I would have liked to lower some of my times a bit more, but counties and states will definitely provide ample opportunity for that.”
He spent the weeks leading up to the post-season meets working on closing races, “because the weakest part of my race starts around 2.5 miles, so that’s definitely something to focus on.”
“He’s really doing well,” Baldasari said. “I hopefully see him coming up big in (the Central Jersey Group III) sectionals. I know his times are higher than he wants them. He’s competing at a county level and I know he wants to improve a little more.”
Despite his love of running and his organized racing growing up, Jenkins opted to play soccer during his first two years at West. He switched to cross country last year and had a fairly stellar season teaming with Ryan Meckel. The two combined for a strong one-two punch that led to a 5-7 record after a winless 2011 campaign.
With Meckel having graduated, it left Austin looking for a new running mate.
“Ryan was a great runner and a great training partner,” Jenkins said. “Him graduating was a huge loss for myself and the team. During summer workouts, I pretty much did the workouts by myself which makes it really hard to get great workouts in everyday.
“However, as the season went on I started to get guys like Ross Talbot, Calvin Rowe and Andrew Rockal to step up and work out with me. This helped me so much and I really started to get good workouts in. I believe this helped them too because they’re pushed a lot working out with me.”
Baldasari feels that Jenkins has not only pushed his teammates, but led them as well.
“He definitely has his own pre-race ritual,” the coach said. “But for practice he definitely takes a leadership role. He knows more than anybody, he’s the most experienced runner on our team. He definitely has no problem taking charge, running through warm-ups and stretches.
“He’s also got a maturity about him. Last spring we were over at Grice to try and recruit, and we talked to eighth grade health classes. He really did a nice job. A lot of kids his age would be nervous getting in front of other kids, but he did it very well.”
Jenkins loved playing soccer for two years and termed it “a great experience,” but admits he would be interested to see what kind of times he would be running now if he began racing as a freshman.
It has not hindered his potential to run in college, as he has been recruited by St. Bonaventure, Hofstra and Loyola of Maryland.
“Hopefully I get some offers to run at all three, but it will be a tough choice because I do love all three pretty much equally,” he said. “I think my final decision will come down to what kind of guys are already on each team, the coaching staff, and of course the academics for each school. So, I’m hoping I’ll be signing to run at one of the three in February.”
Baldasari is anxious to see how Jenkins develops once he begins running with stronger runners against better competition—although Mercer County offers some great high school opponents.
“As he gets to college and gets exposed to those high level races, he will keep improving,” she said. “He has an incredible amount of endurance. He’s just uncomfortable with pacing, but he’s better at it than he realizes.
“But he likes people chasing him. He doesn’t like to sit back and have ground to make up halfway through the race.”
It might have something to do with having the The Eye of the Tiger, as “Rocky” Jenkins looks for that first-round knockout.
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