With All His Heart East Valley’s Dustin Sletner Puts Every Beat Of His Heart - And Then Some - Into Cross Country Running

East Valley High School cross country runner Dustin Sletner runs with a lot of heart - at times, too much.

The Knight senior has a heart malady that isn’t considered serious but can affect his performance when a flare-up occurs during a race.

“My heart races,” said Sletner. “When it happens I tire, perspire a lot and it drains my energy.”

The rapid heart rate doesn’t last long. Most memorable was last year at the State AA meet, for which Sletner qualified as the fifth-place finisher at the district meet.

“In any meet it has happened and stopped right there,” said Sletner. “At state it affected me a lot.”

Still, he ran 36th and remained the fifth best Frontier runner. This year he has run No. 1 for the Knights virtually all season long.

“It was kind of scary,” said EV coach Dave McCarty when he witnessed a reaction last year. “It hasn’t been too bad this season.”

McCarty said that when EV runners check their pulse rates following a workout, Sletner’s recovery to near normal is quick.

Sletner takes a half tablet of medication to control his heartbeat.

“Doctors said they couldn’t do much except medicate,” he said. “Sometimes it doesn’t work. At state it went off and did its own thing.”

EV’s runners have done their thing this year, cutting a wide swath through the Frontier League. And that is just fine with Sletner.

The Knights don’t have the league’s best runner, just a tight-knit pack of 10 runners.

In Thursday’s victory over West Valley and Cheney, five scorers (Ryan Skinner, Sletner, Jim Marlow, Ryan Coordes and Chris Hanson) finished third, fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth, separated by 51 seconds.

East Valley’s 27-31 win over the Eagles turned back the last challenge to a league championship with two foes remaining.

It was a goal, Sletner said, the team dedicated itself to after last year.

East Valley’s boys team has had to play second fiddle to the two-time state champion Knight girls.

“The girls have talent and we’ve been kind of overshadowed by them,” Sletner said. “The last few years we never thought we were that good.”

Now the boys are casting a shadow of their own, if not as a state title contender, at least with the potential to do as a team what Sletner did last year, run in the state meet.

“I thought I’d be up in the front this year but it doesn’t matter as long as the team is good,” he said.

A tradition at East Valley has been for state qualifiers to run down the halls of the school on the day they leave for state as a send-off by their classmates.

Sletner said he wants the boys team to be able take its place alongside the girls during that special occasion.

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