Everett Hackett, a Hall High School graduate and assistant coach of Hall’s cross country team qualified for the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials with a sub 2:19 finish in the California International Marathon Sunday.

By Ronni Newton

West Hartford native Everett Hackett has run – and won – a lot of races over the years, and said he had trained well and felt good heading into Sunday’s California International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento.

The regimen and approach to the race paid off, and when Hackett crossed the finish line in 2:18:53, he qualified for the 2020 Olympic Trials, which will be held in Atlanta on Feb. 29, 2020.

“I felt very good going into the race (taper time!) and very good in the early miles, but having run six marathons before this one, I knew not to be tricked into thinking that it would last because I knew what was coming down the road,” Hackett, 29, told We-Ha.com. What was coming down the road he said, adding a “haha,” was “lots and lots of pain.”

To qualify, Hackett had to run a sub-2:19 race, and his fastest marathon previously was 2:20.23 – at this year’s Hartford Marathon on Oct. 12, where he finished in third place overall.

For a bit of extra perspective, the pace needed to run 26.2 miles in 2 hours and 19 minutes is an average pace of 5:18 per mile. Most people can’t run even close to that pace for just one mile or a fraction of a mile, and he had to do it for 26.2.

“With many of his friends, athletes, and fans following along on the race’s ‘tracker website,’ Everett clicked off mile after mile right on pace, before falling a few seconds off pace from miles 20-25,” Jeff Billing, also a track and cross country coach at Hall and coach of the local running club Hartbeat, said in an email. “We could all see his projected time changing from 2:18:50 to 2:19:10 as we waited for the final update to come over the internet with his finishing time. And – then it came – he ran the last mile in 5:14, just enough to cross the line in 2:18:53, a mere 7 seconds under the time needed. He did it!!!”

OTQ!!!! Everett Hackett has qualified for the Olympic Trials marathon with a time of 2:18:57. On to Atlanta! pic.twitter.com/mBXWyspdbM

— Hartbeat Track Club (@HartbeatTc) December 8, 2019

This is not the first time Hackett has qualified for the Olympic Marathon Trials. The 2008 Hall graduate, who ran at George Mason University, qualified in 2016 with a 1:04:34 time in the Jacksonville Half Marathon. On Feb. 13, 2016, he exceeded his expectations when he finished in 87th place in the trials, with a time of 2:35.08, on a scorching 80-plus-degree day in Los Angeles.

Overall 5K winner Everett Hackett of West Hartford finished in 15:07. Celebrate West Hartford 5K. June 10, 2018. Photo credit: Hunter Marotto (we-ha.com file photo)

Since then Hackett has been racing very well at many distances, including in local races. He holds the overall course record in West Hartford’s Blue Back Mitten Run (15:28 on Dec. 3, 2017) and holds the record (15:04) set in the Celebrate West Hartford 5K, a race which he also won in 2018 with a time of 15:07.

He won the Fairfield Half Marathon in June 2017, in a time of 1:07.16, the first American male to win that race in more than a decade, and finished in 16th place among a very competitive field in this year’s Manchester Road Race.