Ever since he ran 4:01.35 in August of 2020 finishing up his sophomore year and entering his junior year of high school, the pressure had been on both internally and externally on Nease High School distance star Rheinhardt Harrison to break 4 minutes in the mile before he finished up his high school career.
He could have broken it against elite competition out-of-state at events with top professional, collegiate, and national competition, but instead did it on Florida home soil in a modest field of high school competition and newbie pacers at the Golden South Track Series #2 on the evening of Friday, June 3rd at East Lake High School in Tarpon Springs.
Ironically, competing on an old 440-yard track oval when virtually all tracks now are built and designed as 400-meter track ovals, Harrison was able to get under the time barrier that eluded him several times and opportunities over the last two years.
Assigned on pacing duties were two high school peers in East Lake High School senior Noah Chatman and Sarasota High School junior Alec Miller. Chatman with a 1:52 800 and Miller with a 4:13 1600 were both coming off personal best performances at the FHSAA State Track Championships.
At last year's Golden South, Rheinhardt Harrison actually served in the pacer role helping Cambridge Christian's Caroline Lehman break the Florida high school girls' two-mile record in 10:14. It was time to return the favor and get Rheinhardt some help to check off the biggest item left on his to-do list.
The original goal was to try and have at least one of the pacers bring Harrison thru the 1000-meter mark close to a 4-minute pace, but before even the half-mile mark it was apparent that Harrison needed to make his move and finish off this race solo as he was chomping at the bits to pick the pace up more. Splits went 59 seconds for the first quarter-mile and 2:01 at the half-mile mark.
With one final lap to go, Harrison had to roll as the clock read 3:01 rolling over 3:02 as soon as he embarked on his chase to make history. He lit it rip with a 58-second last quarter to push across the finish line to 3:59.33 to a small but intimate crowd roaring in excitement on his effort.
Rheinhardt Harrison became the 16th high school runner ever in the United States to break 4 minutes in the mile as well as part of a special year by becoming the 4th to do it this year. No year prior has had more high school runners break 4 minutes in the mile than this 2022 season.
On the short list of 16 prep American milers to break 4 minutes, Rheinhardt Harrison is only the third to do it on his home state soil joining Jim Ryun in Kansas and Gary Martin in Pennsylvania to achieve the performance in front of local fans.
The vast majority of runners to break 4 minutes also broke the time barrier being pulled along in fields of professional and collegiate runners. Only Jim Ryun, Lukas Verzbicas, Leo Daschbach, and Gary Martin had broken 4 minutes before in purely high school-only fields. Harrison joins that group to do it without the benefit of a fast field of pros and college milers to pull him along.
Arguably Florida's next great miler to follow up Rheinhardt as an encore in 2023 will be Hagerty junior Brayden Seymour, who finished second in the race at Golden South behind him on Friday night with a new personal best time of 4:11.15.
Seymour has run 4:11 three times this year for the full mile distance and won the 4A boys 1600 meter state title as well in 4:11. He will certainly be looking to drop in 4:00's next year for his senior year and certainly, Rheinhardt's performance should inspire the next generation of top Florida high school runners like Seymour to believe to achieve the once thought was impossible.
For Rheinhardt Harrison, this might be the finale of a stellar high school career before he starts the next chapter running for the University of Oregon. In his post-race interview, Harrison eluded to his college coaches being eager to get him to transition to cross country training in the fall since they go up in race distances from the 5K in high school to the 8K and 10K in college.
If this was the last time that we witnessed Rheinhardt Harrison race on Florida soil, what a fitting way to go in joining the sub-4-minute mile club.