CLAYTON, Mo. – Cardinal Ritter sophomore Charles Jones Jr. fully intended to take down the Marion Freeman Clayton Invitational 800-meter record Saturday, and he has plans to rewrite a few more.
Jones sprinted to the front of the field and started building separation in the first 200 meters. The gap grew on the first lap as he turned in a 400-meter split of around 54 seconds. He slowed ever-so-slightly in the final turn, but he was spurred by the crowd and the moment when he turned into the home stretch and saw the clock.
He crossed the finish line in an astounding 1:51.43, which is the eighth-best time in the nation this spring as of the weekend of the Marion Freeman Invitational.
“I just wanted to get out because I knew (Darren Payton) from Cahokia (Ill.) has a really nice kick,” Jones said. “I wanted to get out ahead of him so if he did come back and catch me in the last 100, I’d have a little bit in me to fight him off.
“Last year this was the meet I had PR’d in, and I knew it’s a really fast track and that there would be a lot of competition out here. I wanted it to be this meet that I PR’d.”
Jones began garnering attention last year when he hit 1:57.11 at the same Clayton meet as a freshman. He repeated that time in the Class 3 preliminaries of the state meet, but he could not replicate it a third time in the state finals and finished seventh with a 2:04.83.
He proved his times and growing reputation were no fluke when he busted out a 1:52.62 at the USATF Junior Olympics.
Jones had recently started chipping away his times again this spring, and he entered the Clayton Invitational having just run a 1:53.40 the previous weekend. That placed him in the top 50 nationally, but more importantly to Jones, there was another sophomore out there with a faster time.
“There’s a kid that’s in my class that had a faster time than me,” said Jones, who surpassed the 1:53.34 run by a sophomore out of Idaho. “I wanted to be the fastest in my class, so I really wanted to beat that time, and I told myself I was going to beat it coming into this race.”
Jones has been running 800s and longer distances for a number of years. His father, who goes by Chico, helps train Jones both with Ritter and his summer squad, the St. Louis Express. Even though he has raced in everything from 200 to 3,000, Jones continues to find his way back to the 800.
“He has the strength of a miler and the speed of a quarter miler, and I figure with that it’s the perfect mix to reach the heights you can reach if you don’t mind working hard,” Ritter assistant coach James Williams said. “He can go as far as he’ll let himself go.”
Chico echoed coach Williams in recognizing that much of Jones’ success stems from his hard work in practice.
“There’s nothing I’ve done, or coach has done, but give him a blueprint, and he’s been strong enough to follow it,” Chico said. “He’s developed his own style. I try to give him some guidance, and he takes it from there.”
Jones has targeted other records. He wants to take down the state record (1:49.89), and he’d like to go under 1:49 by the end of the summer to establish a new national record for his age group.
“The records push me, big time,” Jones said. “I just like the feeling of breaking records. I like to hear the crowd; the crowd motivates me.”
