On Sunday morning, Evans woke up to a text from Grizzlies cross-country alumnus Seth Totten that read: “I’m a 2:14 marathoner.”
“I went online and was thrilled to see that he accomplished a 30K race,” Evans said. “And the way that he finished is just impressive and surprising in some respects but not in others. He has always worked towards and accomplished whatever goal he sets forth.”
Totten’s text was referring to his two-hour, 14-minute, 28-second finish in the SSE Airtricity Dublin Marathon 2018 held in Dublin, Ireland this past Sunday.
Finishing in fifth-place out 16,206 runners, Totten was the first American to cross the finish line, qualifying for the 2020 Olympic trials with the result.
Totten bested his finish at the Sacramento Marathon, by more than five minutes, running a time of 2:19:30.
Evans, along with his brother Chris, coached the US Men’s cross-country runner during his final three years of high school at Golden Valley from 2008-10.
At Golden Valley, Totten was a letter winner in both cross-country and track, was named the Santa Clarita Valley Runner of the Year in 2008 and 2009 and was named the Golden Valley High School Athlete of the Year for 2009-10, but had other reasons as to why he started running for the cross-country team.
“He came out so he could become a better base-stealer in baseball,” Evans said. “We got lucky enough to capture his imagination with the sport. He stuck around and did some amazing stuff for us.”
Goin on to run for The University of California, Riverside cross-country team, Totten established a 5k time of 16:00 at the Nevada Twilight Classic in Aug. 2014 and was named the Big West XC Male Athlete multiple times throughout his collegiate career. He earned Big West All-Conference honors after a third-place finish at the Big West Championship his senior.
“He always believed in himself,” Evans said. “He would have good races and bad races, but he always kept this unshakeable belief in what he could do.”
Totten will have time to train for the 2020 Olympic Trials held in Eugene, Oregon on February 29.
“Seth is a great representative of the Santa Clarita Valley, a place that has a such a great history of great running,” Evans said. “I think he is a great representative for our school and even more wonderful representative of the SCV because he embodies the qualities of a runner that embraces challenges and always believes in himself.”
