By FRED KRONER
fred@mahometnews.com
*photo courtesy of the University of Illinois
Jon Davis is accustomed to life on the run.
A nine-time individual state champion while at Oakwood High School, Davis hasn’t slowed down since arriving at the University of Illinois.
Davis has earned all-Big Ten accolades, All-America honors and owns two indoor track school records.
And yet, the Illini coach who is training him, Sarah Haveman, offered a bold prediction.
“His best years are ahead of him,” Haveman said. “Jon has the ideal work ethic, matched with great athletic ability.”
In January, 2018, Davis became the 498th American to run a mile in under 4 minutes.
Last month, he accomplished the feat for a second time, lowering his indoor Illini school record to 3 minutes, 58.06 seconds in a meet at the University of Iowa.
“It has been on my radar for many years,” Davis said. “I always thought it would be something I’d be able to do one day.”
He actually anticipated that the day would arrive sooner than it did.
“I thought I could my senior year in high school (2016), but I don’t know if I was quite in shape to do it,” Davis said.
His first serious attempt to run under 4 minutes as a collegian came on his home track as a redshirt freshman in the annual Illini Classic on Jan. 27, 2018.
“It was by design,” Davis said. “It was something we had on our calendar.”
His time was 3:58.46.
When he repeated the feat last month, the time wasn’t foremost on his list of pre-race objectives.
“He has been working on race tactics,” Haveman said. “This race was about winning.”
After covering the first half-mile in 1:58, however, Davis knew he was on the pace he needed for the milestone.
He keeps track of his splits and added, “I feel it is important to visualize each lap.”
Surprisingly, after each of his historic races, Davis didn’t feel completely spent.
“I didn’t fall to the ground (in exhaustion),” he said. “Both times, I was thinking I was in shape to run faster.”
It wasn’t a given that Davis would run a second sub-four-minute mile time, especially during this indoor season.
Davis has had virtually a year off from competition.
He redshirted last spring during the outdoor season due to a stress fracture in his left foot.
In the fall, he redshirted in cross-country after developing mononucleosis.
“It’s cool to do it a second time after being off through the fall,” Davis said. “I’ve been able to put in a lot of work consistently.”
The Big Ten indoor conference meet will be held on Feb. 22-23 in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Davis will run the mile as well as the anchor leg on the distance medley relay, which is an additional 1,600 meters.
At the time he ran the 3:58.06 mile in Iowa, in January, it was the fastest time nationally this season.
It’s his favorite distance.
“People get excited for it,” Davis said. “People know what a four-minute mile is.”
Haveman doesn’t want to limit Davis to specializing in one event.
“Jon can be super-effective from the 1,500 to the 5K,” Haveman said. “He will be trained to be effective at all of those.”
The time on the clock wasn’t all that impressed the coach at the meet in Iowa.
“He ran hard and positioned himself well throughout,” Haveman said.
The injury and illness came at a time Davis was solidifying his status as one of the Big Ten’s elite distance runners.
During the 2018 indoor season, he was the Big Ten runner-up in the 3-kilometer race.
“It took my freshman year to get the hang of things,” Davis said. “I’m getting used to the competition.”
He is also getting adjusted to working with a new coach. Haveman is in her second year at Illinois, but her first year working with Davis.
“She has explained her training philosophy to me many times over,” Davis said. “It’s different than what I’ve done in the past.
“We have lower mileage and more of an emphasis on supplemental work.”
Davis, a finance major who will turn 22 in October, is anxious to see if everything comes together like it did when he was at Oakwood and won three consecutive state titles in cross-country as well as three more on the track in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter races.
“I would have liked to have won a Big Ten title by now, but I’m right on schedule,” said Davis, who enjoys running to the next challenge.
Before he focuses on a possible Olympic bid in 2020, there’s the Big Ten indoor meet later this month and the NCAA indoor nationals March 8-9 in Birmingham, Ala.
