“The goal is simple, run faster, a lot faster”: Colton Swinth MCHS alum returns to Sonoma County

Colton Swinth standing in front of his old track (Hugh Chochrane / The Puma Prensa)

By Hugh Cochrane, Staff Writer

Every student athlete dreams of going D1 for their sport, yet very few actually achieve this goal, especially for running.

Running is one of the hardest sports to get into college for, as it is purely time based. The schools have their time standards and either you make them, you exceed them, or you miss them.

And if you miss them, your chances of running at that college are next to none.

But what is it like to achieve that goal?

Well, this is the experience of Maria Carrillo Alumnus Colton Swinth, former D3 state champion for our school, and two time Big West 10k Conference winner for Cal Poly. 

Swinth, like many, started running in middle school. and once his friends got into it he couldn’t “let them run and be better than you.” He spent most of his time on the middle school team around the eighth or ninth spot, only “getting a varsity jersey depending on who was sick or didn't show up that week.” Once the offseason came between cross country and track he trained consistently and once he reached track he ran about a 5:00 in the mile, which is a major accomplishment for most middle school athletes.

Once he moved onto high school, he was a standout among many being the number eight on the team as a freshman. He really wanted to run on varsity and it “pushed me to get faster and faster.” Once again, Swinth pushed really hard in the offseason and managed to run a 4:34 in the mile by the end of freshman year at Redwood Empire Championships in 2017. 

Despite his strong start, his high school running career was filled with many bumps along the road, With slow sophomore and junior cross country seasons, running only a 16:34 on the state course, sophomore year, and 16:01 on  junior year…so how did he jump from not even breaking 16 to winning state in cross country?

“I had a crazy end of track season,” his junior year, running a 4:16 in the mile. Which “led me into a good summer” which made his transition into cross country smoothly, and by the time state championships were coming up, Swinth was more than ready to run at Woodward Park.

The race started as usual, a cluttered mess of bodies, pushing and shoving, up and down curbs, and hills, opening the first mile at a blistering 4:43, that was when he knew he had a shot. With 1 kilometer to go is when Swinth began to take the race, pushing forward and winning in a 15:10, and placing twelfth out of every race. His teammate also came in second with a 1-2 finish, but in the end it wasn’t enough to win their division with Campolindo who just barely pulled through to win. 

Even though they didn’t state, Swinth still won in a way, getting recruited to run for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. 

He trained the best he could for track, but he took a few down weeks. Going into track he was “In terrible shape” and was “really nervous going into Dublin, as all the other college commits were probably all going to be in the same 3200 as me.” But the stress of running against other future D1 athletes was unfounded…

Then COVID hit, right before Dublin so he didn't have to run in bad shape. But track season was mostly cancelled, with no other races Swinth got to focus on getting back in shape before summer training. 

Finally he graduated and got to go back into the summer training phase between track and cross, where he mostly followed Coach Fogg’s training program, but didn’t race his freshman year of college and began in 2021.

He ran a strong season opener 7.6k, in 24:29, then ran a 24:09 in the 8k (4.97 miles) and closed his season out in a sub 32 10k cross country performance, placing 94th out of 191 people. During track he ran 14:30 in the 5k and 3:50 in the 1500 (which is equal to about a 4:05 mile). His second year was rough, not running a single PR, but his third year in college was where he really shined. He ran it once and that was enough, winning big west  for the first time in a 30:31, winning his first conference championships.  He just barely missed winning big west in 2024, but came back in his last year of college to win it again in a 29:20, closing out his college career strong with two championships under his belt and a blistering fast 10k time to round off his competitive career.

Recently unc has returned to Sonoma County, over the summer he joined the summer running program that is run by the MCHS cross country Coach Fogg. He has been running at local races and even returned to Cal Poly for an 800m race. He has had no real race goals except enjoying life after college, but has plans to join the MCHS coaching staff to give back to the program that gave him so much back in high school, and he will be a welcome addition to the MCHS Track and Cross Country coaching roster.