Ryan ChartrandBridget Veltri
sports@mustangdaily.net
It’s 5:50 a.m. and still dark out. Daniel Gonia is not asleep.
By 6 a.m. he’s out the door starting his first run of the day. Birds chirp as the sun comes up over the hills, the air is crisp and campus is quiet. Nobody’s out, but Gonia nods good morning to the cows as he passes them. Seven miles later, his day has officially begun.
Gonia didn’t always start his days like this. In fact, the man who now runs just fewer than 20 miles a day didn’t start running until his junior year of high school.
Like most good stories, Gonia’s began with a girl. He was at football practice when he noticed the cross country team practicing.
“They had co-ed practices and that just looked like a lot more fun,” Gonia says.
He didn’t end up getting the girl; he fell in love with cross country instead.
Gonia had success right away. He was an all-state runner in high school, and won the community college state title on behalf of San Diego Mesa College in 2007.
On Sept. 3, the Cal Poly junior was named the Big West Conference Male Cross Country Runner of the Week after winning the 8K UC Santa Barbara Lagoon Open on Aug. 30. His course-record time of 24 minutes, 23 seconds edged former Mustang Phillip Reid, a two-time All-American at Cal Poly.
The modest Gonia, though, chalks up beating Reid to luck.
“I’d raced him twice before that, and he destroyed me,” he says. “200 meters to go and he was coming up quick. I didn’t feel like I had him until I crossed the finish line.”
Naturally, Reid was impressed.
“He’s a great runner – I gave it hell and he still beat me,” Reid says. “He’s a really humble guy who works really hard.”
The Gonia-led Mustangs have moved up to No. 23 in the latest U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll heading into Saturday’s Big West Conference Championships at UC Riverside, where Cal Poly will be looking for its sixth consecutive Big West title.
The combination of engineering and the success of Cal Poly’s cross country program – which finished 11th in the country last year – brought him to San Luis Obispo.
“I’ve wanted to come here since I was a freshman in high school,” the San Diego native says. “Mark Conover is an unbelievable coach.”
Conover, the Mustangs head coach, couldn’t be happier to have him.
“The kid is an aerobic beast,” he says. “He’s a person that I want to be around. He’s not a bragger; he has the ability to run a good race and then put it away.”
In addition to his morning 7-mile run, Gonia joins the team weekday afternoons for 10-to- 11-mile “tempo” runs.
“The team helps a lot on those,” he says. “It would be hard to do those alone.”
Cal Poly, famous for its pack running, placed its top five runners within 22 seconds of each other in a seventh-place finish at the Pre-National Invitational in Terre Haute, Ind. on Oct. 18.
Even amongst such a steady and committed group, Gonia led the way, with a 38th-place 24:18.9.
“They are all great guys and we are all really close,” Gonia says of his teammates. “I can’t say enough about how lucky I am to be a part of this team.”
Every Sunday, anyone from the team who can meets in front of Mott Gym to get in a weekend workout. Some run 12 miles and others 18. Gonia does 20.
“As weird as this sounds: Running is how I relax,” he says.
“I took 25 units at Mesa one semester while trying to transfer, and I noticed that my mileage went up with my stress. I don’t think I would have made it through that if I didn’t have running.”
Gonia describes himself as high-energy and thinks that running helps balance him out. His family agrees.
“He is much easier to deal with after he has been running,” says Gonia’s mother, Marie. “He has a lot of energy and if he hasn’t run yet that day you can tell.”
Every athlete has a superstition, from lucky gear to a jersey number. Gonia’s is slightly different.
“I eat a bar of dark chocolate before every race,” he says. “It’s just something I’ve done – just one of those rituals like walking the track before a race. I think it makes me run better.”
Would an iPod?
“That actually has come up in team discussions,” Gonia laughs. “I don’t (run with one) because when I run I enjoy being alone with my thoughts.”
That mentality is a perfect match with Conover’s philosophy.
“Pure runners like to be out there in nature,” he says. “Why do you need Bon Jovi blaring in your ear when you are out there on a country road? I like my team to associate with their bodies and tune into themselves.”
Gonia seems to be in tune not only with himself, but what he wants out of life: to eventually compete in marathons.
“There is a difference between running and racing a marathon,” he says. “Sunday runs are more of a social thing – talking and jogging, it’s enjoyable.”
Conover, who ran at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, feels Gonia could set his sights even higher.
“I definitely think he isn’t selling himself short by setting (Olympic) goals,” Conover says. “He’s a warrior and has a lot of longevity in the sport.”
His mother also believes in her son’s chances.
“You have to have heart to go out and work for something like that in order to achieve it,” she says. “He has that heart.”