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SEATTLE – He has four conference 800-meter track titles tucked away – three indoors, one outdoors.
 
The way Nate Seely sees it, that's four more than he ever expected.
 
“I think my body is really good at running two laps,” the Seattle Pacific junior said with a grin. “Probably a lot of people have hidden talents where they're especially successful at something or another.
 
“I just happened to discover what mine was.”
 
On Friday afternoon, some of the best 800-meter runners in the country will get to discover Seely's talents for the first time. That's when he and they will step to the starting line in the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl for their race at the NCAA Division II national championships in Pueblo, Colo.

When Seely does answer the starter's call at 5:15 p.m. PDT, he will be the first Falcon man to do so at nationals since Eddie Strickler ran at the 2007 meet in Charlotte, N.C. – also in the 800 meters.
 
“I live with a bunch of track athletes – all the distance runners – and we've always talked about the curse,” said the 22-year-old Seely, a graduate of Lynden High School about two hours northeast of Seattle. “A lot of (SPU) male distance runners have almost made it to nationals, then missed it by one or two spots. Finally, the curse was broken.
 
 “I still don't quite believe it – and probably won't until after it's over,” Seely added. “It has been my dream forever. I didn't really expect it to happen.”
 
Two weeks ago as he headed into the 800 finals at the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships in Monmouth, Ore., it wasn't happening. Seely had finished fifth in the previous day's preliminaries in 1 minute, 54.09 seconds. His season best of 1:51.95, which had ranked fifth in all of D-2 on the day he ran it (April 7 in Spokane), was down to 29^th on the list – 13 places below the top-16 cutoff line for actually making it to the national meet, albeit just half a second out of that same coveted spot.
 
Right from the start of the title race, he abandoned his usual cautious, strategic approach. Instead, Seely surged to the front – and just kept going. He came across the line in 1:50.61, bouncing all the way up to No. 6 nationally. After all of the other conference meets from around the country were factored in, he settled in at the No. 8 spot, and was ready to pack for Pueblo.
 
“I figured that might be my last race, the last time I'd get to experience what it was like to go out and run hard,” Seely said. “I just went out and raced hard all the way through and came across with a huge PR.
 
“I improved more in that race than I've improved in my entire college career.”
 
Added assistant track coach and head cross country coach Erika Daligcon, “It's exciting to see things come together for him at this moment. It was fun for him not only getting his outdoor title, but having a PR on top of that. I think he's in a good place, mentally and physically.”
 
FROM INDONESIA TO LYNDEN
Even before his very first race in high school, Seely never fancied himself a distance runner.

But it went beyond that.
 
“I never considered myself an athlete,” he said. “I did cross country in high school to make friends, and I was pretty awful. I assumed I would be awful when track rolled around. But the first 800 I ran, I ended up surprising everyone – and myself.”
 
The search for some new friends was necessary because Seely and his family moved to Lynden prior to his junior year in high school. They had lived the previous six years in Indonesia, where his parents both taught at an international school.
 
Those six years made an impact on him. Seely, an English major with a  3.86 grade-point average, spent some of his time there teaching English and wants to return eventually to teach some more.
 
“That experience changed my life,” he said. “Most people there have never met a Westerner or a Christian before. Building bridges and being a representative of a follower of Christ and being a Westerner is really important. There are not that many people who are doing that sort of thing. Since I speak Indonesian, I have the background and the cultural knowledge.
 
“It's just like running,” Seely said. “I have abilities that God has given me that I need to steward. Going back to Indonesia is something that is very much on my mind.”
 
THE FINAL FINISH LINE?
Seely says this week in Colorado probably will be his last significant competition. While he's just a junior and therefore eligible to come back and try for a fourth straight GNAC indoor 800 title and another outdoor crown in 2013, Seely will be student-teaching next year. He said he very likely will put his focus in that direction, though he is leaving the door open at least a little bit.
 
“It's really tempting to continue on. But realistically, I won't be able to put in the time,” he said. “People have tried student-teaching and college athletics, and one or the other tends to slide.
 
“But it will depend on where I find myself after student-teaching in the winter.”
 
If this really is it, Seely at least has a chance to finish his career in style. The top two seeds in the 800 – Aduo Omot of Augustana (S.D.) and Boris Berian of Adams State (Colo.) – are well in front of the field at 1:48.51 and 1:48.93, respectively. But the remaining 14 runners are bunched within one second of each other, ranging from 1:50.36 to 1:51.12. That includes Seely's eighth-seeded time of 1:50.61.
 
If Seely is among the top nine in Friday's prelims, he'll earn a spot in Saturday's finals. The top eight finishers in that championship race will become All-Americans.
 
“I've done more than I expected to do in my college career. So no matter what happens this week, I'll feel blessed to have had the success and experiences I've had,” he said. “I'm confident about my abilities to get things done at the end of races. I'll have the same mindset I had at GNAC: This is the last time I'm going to experience this, so I'll be thinking, 'You're going to want to remember this, Nate.
 
'Go and run your heart out.'”