Top-Tier Talent: VHHS junior Ethan Strand a step ahead of the rest

Most runners would have tossed in the towel after running three races in two days. But Ethan Strand, as he has demonstrated time after time, is not like most runners.

So in his fourth and final event at May’s Class 7A state outdoor track and field meet, the Vestavia Hills High School sophomore pushed aside excuses and laid it all on the line. It didn’t matter that he already had won the 1,600 and 3,200 meters, or that he had contributed to his school’s fourth-place finish in the 4x800-meter relay.

All that Strand cared about was doing the best he could for his team. As usual, he delivered.

After conserving what little energy he had left during the first of two laps in the 800-meter race, Strand found another gear. He picked off more experienced and rested competitors one by one as he rounded the oval at the Gulf Shores Sportsplex. Upon turning the final curve, he charged into the lead.

“For me, that’s the part of the race that’s the most fun,” said Strand, who smiled after crossing the finish line. “It’s what I look forward to.”

Strand’s matchless kick helped him shave four seconds off his previous personal best — he ran 1 minute, 54.52 seconds — while securing his seventh individual state title and propelling the Rebels to a runner-up finish in the team standings.

The performance also reinforced something that his coaches, parents and teammates have known for quite some time. Strand, only 16, possesses the type of talent that could carry him to heights most can only imagine.

“When we first met with his parents and him, at the end of the meeting ... I was talking about his career, and I was like, ‘You know, one of the steps would be the Olympics,’” Vestavia head cross-country and track coach Brett Huber said. “And they all chuckled at me.”

The future foreshadowed in Huber’s comment isn’t unfathomable. Already, Strand has surfaced on the national scene. At June’s Music City Distance Carnival, a prestigious track meet held annually in Nashville, he clocked 4:11 in the mile. Only two sophomores in the country ran faster during the 2019 outdoor season, and only a few high schoolers have ever run faster in state history.

“I really feel like he’s special,” said his mother, Lori Strand, “and he has a lot of talent.”

She would know. Lori Strand ran collegiately at UAB and coached Division I cross-country and track at Samford. Ethan’s father, Scott Strand, was an All-American distance runner at Auburn and competed in multiple Olympic Trials. He now co-owns the Trak Shak running shops in metro Birmingham.

“Of course, having a dad and a mom who have run, I want to follow up in their footsteps,” Ethan Strand said. “That’s always been a great goal of mine, is to be as good as my dad.”

Strand embarked on that endeavor at a young age. He started competing in the Mercedes Marathon kids race when he was in kindergarten and hopped in other local running events as his interest grew. Huber remembers catching his first glimpse of Strand at an AAU cross-country race a few years ago. The boy with blonde hair had gapped the pack.

“He just tore it up,” Huber said. “You’re like — and it’s the same thing you see now — ‘Who is that kid winning that race? Look at him move.’ He was just a natural, gifted runner.”

Strand seldom lost a race once he arrived at Pizitz Middle School, even as club soccer consumed a lot of his time. He juggled both sports through the first semester of his freshman year at VHHS before deciding to focus on running. The choice didn’t come as a surprise.

“I really thought running was going to be my sport even from a really young age,” Strand said. “... It’s not that [my parents] forced it upon me. It’s just something I loved on my own.”

Honing in on running yielded an immediate return. After placing 31st at the state cross-country meet the preceding fall, Strand prevailed in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters at the state outdoor track meet in May 2018. He posted times of 4:21 and 9:30, respectively.

In the 3,200, he led a Vestavia sweep with teammates Bryce Hutchinson and James Sweeney taking second and third.

“I kind of knew it was going to happen,” said Sweeney, now a sophomore at Butler University in Indiana. “I knew he was very fit, and like, if you know the kid, he’s one of the most competitive people you’ll ever meet. He just lives and breathes it.”

Strand parlayed that momentum into a sophomore year that saw him collect five more state championships. He won the state cross-country title with a 5K time of 15:24; won the 1,600 indoors; and then swept the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 outdoors. None of the victories came easily. Strand fended off a host of talented challengers in the closing stretch of each race.

“There’s something about him mentally. He just doesn’t want to lose,” Lori Strand said. “... If he’s physiologically capable of doing it, he will hurt until he passes out.”

Ethan Strand took a week off after running 4:11 in Nashville. Then, he shifted his focus to his junior cross-country campaign. He’s shooting for another state championship and would like to qualify for one of the big-time meets, either Foot Locker or Nike nationals, that are held at the end of the season. He’s also thought about breaking 15 minutes for the 5K. It’s a barrier that has only been eclipsed by a few other Alabama high schoolers, but it’s one well within Strand’s reach.

At this point, anything is.

“Running faster makes the sport fun,” he said. “So the faster I run, the more I enjoy it.”