Martin Barco 'came out of nowhere.' Now, he's easy to spot... at the head of the pack.

MARTINSVILLE – Martin Barco has always let his mind run. Now his legs are doing likewise.

He has a vivid imagination, once creating a fantasy world for childhood friends by a backyard creek. Or in absorbing tales from the "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings" or "Chronicles of Narnia" series. Yet young Martin never could have imagined what is happening now.

Barely two years after he began in track and field, the Martinsville 18-year-old is aiming to become Indiana’s fastest high school miler ever. Maybe the first sub-4-minute miler. And he could duplicate the greatest one-day double in 121 years of state meets.

His path has been unconventional, including connections to soccer, the military, a medieval French town, world medalists Matthew Centrowitz, Cole Hocker and Kole Mathison, and the movie “Hoosiers.” For someone who once ran cross-country by sprinting 100 meters, allowing others to catch up, and then doing it again, Barco has found his stride.

“I feel like I’ve just barely scratched the surface of what it’s possible for me to do,” he said.

Barco, after setting an indoor state record of 4:05.62, will make a bid for the outdoor record Friday night. He is entered in the Trials of Miles at New York City’s Randalls Island. Indiana’s record of 4:01.83 has been held since 2011 by Center Grove’s Austin Mudd.

Barco is headed to the University of Washington, which has produced the past four NCAA champions at 1,500 meters or a mile.

It is beyond imagination.

“He’s one of one,” said Wally Spina, Martinsville soccer coach.

***

Martin Barco IV is 6-1, 165 pounds. He is the oldest of four children born to Martin Barco III, a Bloomington dentist and former Marine Corps second lieutenant, and wife Amy. The parents met at Northwestern University, where Amy Borneman was an All-America field hockey player and part of a final four team.

The runner was born in Chapel Hill, N.C., when the father was in dental school.

The boy eventually was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, but all the mother knew was how hard it was to wear him out so he would nap. She took the 1-year-old to a zoo in Asheboro, N.C., to run around the grounds, up to three miles.

He gravitated to soccer both for the activity and the camaraderie.

“Doesn’t know a stranger,” his mother said.

Barco characterized himself as an outdoorsy type who, as a child, would rather catch goldfish than play video games. He favors group activities over solo pursuits.

As much as he liked becoming the first to repeat as mile champion April 12 at Franklin Central’s Flashes Showcase, the highlight of his night was jogging laps afterward with runners from other schools.

“I get my joy in running from my teammates. That’s really it,” Barco said.

In middle school, his family lived for a few months in Semur-en-Auxois, built on a pink granite bluff. During the Middle Ages, the French town was a stronghold for the Dukes of Burgundy during the Hundred Years War.

Barco didn’t speak French upon arrival, but he learned fast enough to make friends easily. The experience contributed to an interest in foreign policy, which he plans to study in college. Career ambition: CIA agent.

***

Barco confirmed his attention can scatter, but he never strayed from his favorite sport.

“Just soccer, soccer, soccer,” his mother said. “He would play with every other team. He just loved the sport. Still loves the sport.”

He played club soccer and became a star for the Artesians, who played him on the wing. Last fall, he had nine goals and four assists in 17 games, making all-conference.

“He would just wear people down because he could run for, you know, forever,” Spina said.

That’s not all. He played with a flair vexing the coach. Barco would beat a defender, then pull back so he could beat him again. Why not make one move and run past the defender?

“It was his style,” Spina said.

As a freshman, Barco played two soccer seasons: fall for high school, spring for Riverside Military Academy of Gainesville, Ga. He was not thriving in online learning during the pandemic, and he could be in a classroom at the academy.

Military life was “a shocker,” he said. And not just because he had to cut off his flaming red hair.

“It was like boot camp. It really was,” he said. “But I think it was the best experience of my life. I think doing that shaped the person I am today.”

Paradoxically, soccer redirected him to running. The coach required players to run a timed mile, and Barco said he ran under 4:30 while wearing a soccer kit. That, he said, made him wonder what he could achieve as a runner.

Eighth-grade cross-country had been almost comical. Barco remembers sprinting, stopping, then waiting for others like Ryan Rheam — a Bloomington South runner who later placed third in the state at 3,200 meters — to catch up. Then repeat, sprint and stop. Barco sometimes won anyway.

“I was very clueless,” he said.

After finishing 73^rd in a semistate in October 2021, the sophomore sat down with his father in the basement of their home. Befitting his military background, Martin III, once a high school runner in suburban Chicago, was direct with his son:

If you want to be good at running, you must train. Really train. Here it is November, and you have all winter. You’re tapping into just 10% of your potential. I can help you. What do you say?

“And he said, ‘OK.’ I was floored,” the father recalled. “I didn’t think he would say that. OK, then. ‘Let’s do some training.’”

***

In Barco’s first 1,600 meters of 2022 — his first high school track race — he won in 4:40.64. By the end of the season, his time dropped 28 seconds. In Hoosier basketball terms, that’s a 20% 3-point shooter making 60% after a couple of months.

He was a puzzling figure, considering he had not lived in Indiana the previous spring. And he was playing club soccer, limiting himself to one track workout a week.

Who was this guy?

Martinsville coach Luke Moscrip wasn’t sure, either. Barco won an 800/1,600/3,200 triple in his first meet. OK, the coach thought, that is too much. Gotta keep this kid healthy.

“We’ve got something special here,” Moscrip told himself.

Barco’s father was convinced. Sorta.

Heading into the sectional, he cautioned his son to run for second behind Bloomington North junior Kyle Clark, who had run eight seconds faster. Clark became a University of Illinois signee and has run equivalent to a 4:06 mile.

The sophomore rejected Dad’s advice.

Barco sat on Clark’s pace, outkicked him, and lowered his time by five seconds — to 4:19.60. He was a sectional champion, something he never achieved in soccer.

It was a race changing everything.

“I was like, ‘Yes, this is what I want to do. I’m going to dedicate myself to running,’” Barco said.

After winning the 1,600 at a regional, the state meet was next. He intended to score in the top nine, and told his soccer coach. Spina replied:

“OK, Martin. Whatever, man.”

Whatever, indeed.

Turns out 2022 had one of Indiana’s best collection of prep milers, featuring four current or future state champions: winner Mathison, of Carmel, a team bronze medalist at under-20 World Cross-Country; Reese Kilbarger Stumpff, Columbus North; Barco, and another sophomore, Brebeuf Jesuit’s Cameron Todd.

Barco finished fifth in 4:12.93, just ahead of Clark’s 4:13.41.

“Martin sort of came out of nowhere,” his mother said.

Barco was faster as a sophomore than the 4:13:58 by Cathedral High’s Hocker, who had run to a national title as a 9-year-old. At that age, Barco was kicking a ball, not outkicking opponents.

(Hocker, a 3:48 miler, was sixth in the 1,500 meters at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and silver medalist at the 2024 World Indoor Championships.)

In 2023, Barco beat Mathison at the Flashes mile, then did so again at state. He became the first Martinsville runner to be a state champion. Barco’s 800 meters at regional was not good enough for the fast section, but he finished third out of the slow section.

In New Balance nationals at Philadelphia, he was fifth in the mile in 4:08.78. Still, 10 juniors across the country were faster in this era of supershoes and pacers. Who would recruit such a mystery man?

***

Washington is Miler U. The Huskies had eight men under 4 minutes in the same race on Jan. 27, 2023, including those NCAA champions.

Coach Andy Powell acknowledged he was not “thrilled” with Barco’s times, compared with other prospects. However, recruiting coordinator Chris Kwiatkowski was insistent.

“Chris kept talking about Martin,” Powell said.

Kwiatkowski was a college roommate at Oregon with Centrowitz, gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Besides, Powell has affection for Indiana. His father grew up on a Pittsboro farm near scenes from opening credits of “Hoosiers.”

On a recruiting visit to Seattle, Barco loved the comradeship, and he influenced the coach to make a scholarship offer. The Hoosier had another visit scheduled to Oregon, where Powell formerly coached, but canceled it.

Barco won’t lack for training partners at Washington. He is already interacting with them on Instagram.

“Those are the guys we want,” Powell said. “He’s definitely all about the team stuff.”

Another Washington recruit lacking preseason acclaim was Nathan Neil of Bozeman, Mont. As May begins, Neil ranks second nationally in the mile (4:01.31) and second at 3,200 meters (8:35.32).

“I feel like we got the two best kids out there, really,” Powell said.

Barco and Neil align with the university’s tagline:

For who you are. For who you’ll become. Be boundless.

***

There is an element of Barco’s personality that enhances his running, irrespective of miles logged per week. He is a risktaker.

“I never question his dedication or work ethic,” Spina said. “He was just kind of flighty sometimes, kind of goofy.”

When it comes to sports, Barco’s father said, “he’s not ADHD.” The teen can grind.

For instance, at the Oct. 28 state cross-country meet, Barco was in the lead pack through 5:55 at 2,000 meters. He finished 22^nd in 15:34.8, still meriting all-state honors.  He said it “feels better than anything I’ve accomplished,” given a fall season devoted to soccer.

After an iliotibial band issue interrupted winter training, he traveled to Boston for an indoor mile March 10. With 400 meters left, he was within 1 second of leader Clay Shively of Wichita, Kan. Shively, who last year broke Jim Ryun’s 58-year-old Kansas indoor record, was first in 4:00.47. Barco couldn’t keep pace, but his 4:05.62 in second broke Mathison’s Indiana record.

In an April 19 race at Carmel, Barco raced Todd at 3,200 meters. Todd had beaten him by 39 seconds in cross-country and was second at Nike nationals, ahead of Neil. Grimly, Barco held on. He went on to win, lowering his time by nine seconds to 8:48.20 ... and spent the next few minutes leaning over a trash can.

Never mind the pace. Barco comes to race.

***

For a high schooler to run a sub-4-minute mile does not carry the cachet it once did. Twenty boys have done so, nine since 2022.

Still, running sub-4:00 remains a landmark achievement, 70 years after Roger Bannister became the first man under the barrier. Barco is going for it.

“There’s no doubt in my mind he’ll run sub-4:00 in a mile because he says he’s going to,” said Spina, the soccer coach.

If Barco comes up short Friday, he would have perhaps two more chances — June 12 at Renton, Wash., if invited by the Brooks PR Invitational, and three days later in New Balance nationals at Philadelphia.

More urgently, there is the June 1 state meet at Bloomington. Barco will attempt an 800/1,600 double last won by Mudd, who in 2011 broke meet records that had stood since the 1970s.

“I think I’m set to peak very late this season,” Barco said. “I really am behind in training.”

He continues to come from behind, irrespective of miles run on a soccer pitch. His goals no longer land in the back of the net. They are digits on a timer.

The future remains to be imagined.

Contact IndyStar correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Martinsville runner Martin Barco closing in on Indiana mile history