Courtesy of Noah Nelson
On Feb. 13, basketball player Sam Henderson ’25, and runner Noah Nelson ’26 were given the Pioneers of the Week award by the Lewis & Clark Athletics department on their @lcpioneers Instagram account.
“Henderson dished out a career-high seven assists on Friday with 10 points against NWC-leading #16 Whitworth and scored 19 points with four boards and three blocks to help the Pioneers defeat Whitman for the first time since 2020,” read the post. “Nelson broke his own program record in the 800m with a photo finish win over (University of) Portland’s Nathan Short in 1:56.62. He also helped the 4x400m mixed relay team claim victory.”
Nelson has been competing in track since middle school, and hopes to go pro post-grad. In an interview on Feb. 16, Nelson elaborated on his experience running track at LC and beyond.
“I used to wrestle, and then found out I was good at running, and stuck with it,” he said.
Nelson also shared some of his favorite aspects of running for LC’s track and field team, namely the community.
“It’s fun to go out and watch all your friends compete and work hard,” Nelson said. “It’s honestly a lot more team-oriented than you’d think. It’s kind of like swimming, where the higher you place on an event, the better your team does.”
He also discussed how though he found the majority of his community at LC through track, he still seeks to connect with people outside of athletics.
“I do know a lot of people who feel that athletes and people that aren’t into athletics are super divided on campus,” Nelson said. “That’s just goofy to me. I think people just need to talk more and make more connections. Everyone’s human. Let’s just, like, talk to each other.”
He explained how he was excited to begin the season this year, since he was not able to run last year.
“I didn’t run for LC last year, because I was academically ineligible, which is hard to talk about, but I think honestly, owning your mistakes and moving past them is important to do, and I just am glad that I get the chance to run for the team again,” he said. “But I did train with the (Timberline Athletic) Club and ran on my own when I was ineligible because I wanted to come back and show people that I care about that are on the team that I want to work and help them all succeed too.”
He explained that in the last meet at University of Washington, he had to coordinate his workload for the entire weekend, printing all his readings and schoolwork to complete in the van during the ride up.
Preseason training started on Jan. 18, so the track and field season is just getting started.
“We haven’t been training very long, and I’m just stoked for the season, because I’m already thirteenth in the nation, and I’m gonna get to go to Nationals, hopefully, for indoor,” Nelson said.
Nelson is looking forward to LC hosting both the 2025 Track and Field Northwest Conference in late April and the Portland Track Festival in June.
“We’re hosting conference this year, which I’m stoked for, because I think we have the most beautiful track in Oregon — actually, the second most,” he said. “Hayward, which is down in Eugene, just got remodeled, and it’s a nice facility. You can’t really beat it. We’re hosting a few home meets, and then we’re hosting conference, and then the big meet, the meet I want to perform at the best is the Portland Track Festival, which we’re hosting again.”
Nelson explained that he’s most excited to compete in the Portland Track Festival because there will be a variety of competitors, a high level of competition and he will have the chance to compete in multiple events. Nonetheless, he emphasized that he pushes himself regardless of the level of competition.
“I like to think that competition is the weight you put on yourself,” Nelson said. “You can try as hard as you want on your own. People think a lot of the time that you need to be put in a good race to run fast. And I think Jacob — he’s the runner from Norway who just broke the mile record — is a good example. He basically ran the entire race by himself, because no one in the field could run with him.”
Jacob Ingebrigtsen, on Feb. 13, set the indoor mile world record of 3:45.14 at the World Indoor Tour Meet in Liévin, France.
Nelson plans to compete in both 2025 and 2026, with the intention of competing professionally post-grad.
“I want to try and run pro,” Nelson said. “That’s been the goal. My dad was a pro cyclist, and I obviously aspire to get to that point. I like to compete and race, so if I can run fast enough … LA 2028! I think the angle is to at least make it to trials or USA Championships or something like that one day.”
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