Athletes of the Week: Menlo’s Justin and Landon Pretre

Justin and Landon Pretre have been named Daily Journal Athletes of the Week by virtue of a fantastic one-two finish in the varsity race last Friday at the Lowell Invitational in San Francisco.

“They just killed it,” Menlo head coach Jorge Chen said.

The elder Justin took first place with a time of 13 minutes, 20.1 seconds on the revamped 2.78-mile course at Golden Gate Park. Landon, a sophomore, picked off three runners over the final 400 meters to take second place in 13:23.

It was quite a statement for Justin, considering his disappointing finish at the Central Coast Section track and field finals last season. A middle-distance runner, Justin settled for 10th place in his specialty 1600-meter event. He was contending with a stress fracture at the time, but it didn’t take the sting off the result.

The current senior found his footing during the summer club season, though. With the Greyhounds Track and Field club, he ran the anchor leg on the 4x800 relay team that took first place at the USA Junior Nationals in Sacramento. Evidently, the adrenaline was still flowing for his senior season opener.

“Yeah, having the opportunity to win a race is rare in cross country because there’s so much competition,” Justin said. “So, any time you’re up toward the front it feels like you’re going super fast. I definitely had a little motivation from that to keep on going … and i definitely felt like I pushed it to the best of my abilities for the day.”

As a general rule, a runner will pace oneself earlier in the season and work to a strong finish. Chen acknowledged the point but was happy with the result.

“It’s hard to tell a teenage boy not to run fast, especially since both brothers, they had a decent cross country season last fall,” Chen said.

For Landon, the 2021 cross country season was understandably more productive than for his older brother. Landon is a pure distance runner, as evidenced by his surprise second-place finish in the 3200 meters at the CCS track and field finals last season.

“The improvement I saw through cross country season (last year) I would say was pretty insane,” Landon said.

There is a sense Menlo has a chance to do something special this season. Not only do the Knights have the personnel, they will compete at the CCS Division V level this season, a smaller pool than the Division IV in which they have traditionally competed in years past.

Chen referenced the Menlo girls’ cross country teams of 2018 and ’19 that featured the Pretre brothers’ older sister Kyra. The girls finished 12th at the Division IV level at the state meet in 2018 and returned in 2019 to take second place.

“We would have won state back-to-back years by at least 30 points (in Division V),” Chen said. “That’s how strong we would have been.”

The Menlo boys took sixth place in the team element of the varsity race at the Lowell Invite, but the team was missing two of its top-five in sophomore Will Hauser and freshman James Yue. That didn’t stop the Pretre borthers from putting their best foot forward.

“We obviously just want to set the tone,” Landon said. “We want to come into the season and make a name for ourselves.”

Justin’s win was quite the statement in rededicating himself to distance running. It’s some next-level thinking as he looks forward to running in college. But there’s nothing quite like a senior year to put the notion of “legacy” at the forefront of one’s goals.

“I want to be the best team player that I can be,” Justin said. “And I think in a lot of cases, that’s being both a good track athlete and being able to step it up for cross country.”

Justin set the pace in the front of the pack last Friday, running in tandem with his brother for the first two miles. Palo Alto junior Grant Morgenfeld was right there with them and heading into the final 800 meters, Justin created some distance while Morgenfeld was contending in second. Landon, meanwhile, had slid to fifth place.

But with Landon’s savvy as a distant runner, he was saving his adrenaline kick. He not only chased down three runners, probably had a chance to chase down Justin as well had he had more time, Chen said.

“He picked off Grant with 300 meters to go and then he was closing on his brother,” Chen said. “Landon is the kind of kid that’s just crazy enough to do something like that.”

Landon’s recall wasn’t quite as optimistic.

“Over the last 3 or 400, I really turned it on,” Landon said. “but I was kind of dying at the finish line. I fell right over afterwards.”

For Justin, the victory is a nice rebound from last year’s Lowell Invite, when he took ninth in the varsity race.

“I don’t think I was as strong as I am now,” Justin said. “I’m definitely a lot happier with this year’s result than I was last year.”

Now, the Knights are looking to hit the jackpot at the Woodbridge Invite. The selection process saw Menlo draw a spot in the sweeps race, short for sweepstakes, meaning the top race at the meet. The race will feature not just many of the top runners and teams throughout the state, but many from throughout the western region as well.

“We’ll see where we are in the state of California after Friday night,” Chen said.