Soren Larsen, bearing the first name of a famous Danish philosopher, has an interesting explanation for why cross-country runners – at least those at his high school, La Jolla – finish a race in a pack despite the three-mile distance. They train at the same speed during the week. And they train at the same speed because they want to be around their friends to chat and socialize during the runs. “I like doing an individual sport (cross-country and track) with other people,” says the likeable ninth-grader, a shock of his bright white blond hair standing out from across the Viking workout area. “They push you to do better. They compete against you so that you have to compete against them. I don’t want to do an individual sport without other people.” Part of this dynamic involves running together with teammates – at least in cross-country, which is a fall sport – to catch up on the latest news. It’s like mobile social media, without the electronics as a go-between. (Soren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher and theologian. Larsen recognized his name when it was brought up.) In Coach Paul Byrne’s track program, Larsen is a jumper: long, triple and high. ON a recent afternoon, Byrne and he have been working on the last two steps in the long jump and triple jump. The freshman explains (and demonstrates bodily while the reporter clicks photos) that the last two steps in the long jump have to be executed on the heels, while in the triple jump the opposite is true – “you can kind of go flatfoot.” Byrne was a stabilizing influence on the school track program last season by providing continuity after a flurry of yearly coaching changes. He jokes when told that Larsen is the subject of an interview: “You’re going to interview a freshman?” Both smile at the comment. Larsen says that his mother Cathy, a marathon runner herself, is the one who pointed out last fall that he and his teammates were finishing cross-country races with similar times. “We’re not all running together during the race,” clarifies the younger Larsen, “but we all finish around the same time.” He insists this isn’t due to faster runners permitting the slower runners to catch up. It’s not a descent into mediocrity. According to him, it’s due to training. “That’s the pace we run during practice. No one wants to run alone, because then they can’t talk to their friends.” His father, Dan, is a kite surfer. He has to explain to an interviewer what kite-surfing is. It’s not windsurfing, which Dan did. It’s not sailboarding. In kite surfing, literally a kite is pulling Dan along as he rides on a board intended for the sport. Kirsten, Soren’s younger sister, is a seventh-grader at Muirlands Middle School and does gymnastics through the La Jolla YMCA. When asked if his father and sister run, as mom and son do, Soren has a look and an assertion: “No.” Mother Cathy has run in the New York City Marathon once and in the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon several times. The two have been on runs together, although school schedules inhibit that from happening regularly. Soren Larsen, the new face of the social media generation, is personable and engaged. He’s having too much fun being a healthy, happy 15-year-old to bow his head into his phone.
Although a people person, he likes the predictability of computer science, taught by Greg Volger. “It’s make more sense than math,” he says. “When I’m doing math, there’s always an exception to the operation I’m doing. In computer science, you can predict. It’s like math, but it makes more sense than math.” He sees himself in “something to do with technology” in 10 to 15 years. He uses his YouTube app a lot and just viewed a video on how the creation of electronic storage and how it has multiplied in recent times. Fair-skinned Larsen still favors food originating from south of the border, including carne asada burritos with rice and beans and tacos made of skirt steak or mahi mahi and guacamole. An avid skateboarder, he says he tried pole vaulting for the first time the day before this interview. “It’s similar to long jump and triple jump as far as the running and last two steps,” he says. “In the triple and long, I go off my right foot. In the pole vault, I go off my left foot. In skateboarding, my left foot is pushing down on the back while my right foot is forward.” He says he had “regrets” over filling in unexpectedly on the second leg of the 4 x 400 relay in a meet the week before and running all out. “I didn’t know I was going to run the 4 x 4,” he relates. “I had a chance to practice just in case, but I did something else. After the race, I didn’t have a lot of oxygen in my brain. Things looked like the red and blue in a 3-D movie.” But he quickly recovered. A track participant since his mother began taking him to the La Jolla High Junior Olympics program when he was an elementary school student, Larsen reflects on the runner’s high. “When I’m running,” he says, “there’s a point where it stops feeling bad and you have deep thoughts. It stops getting worse … “I forget that I’m running. I just think about things I’m going to do. Sometimes when I’m running, I feel the same way I do before I go to sleep. I’ll think of tricks I can do on my skateboard, like a trick on a mini-pipe (maybe the one at the skatepark in Clairemont).”