It took a quarter of a second for Kamehameha senior runner Jeremy Kamaka'ala to go from first to second after he was passed at the finish line of the state cross country championships last year.

"It's back there somewhere; I think about it now and then," he said.

This year, he's not planning on letting it get that close.

Kamaka'ala has been one of the state's best distance runners the past three years. He won the state title in 2003 as a sophomore, and came in second in that dramatic finish last year.

This year, he's one of the top picks to win it again after winning his second straight Interscholastic League of Honolulu title Saturday.

"He's definitely an inspiration to watch," said Hawai'i Baptist senior Lauren Ho, the state's top girl runner. "It seems like he's a gutsy runner. He can turn it around and win when he wants to."

Kamaka'ala will run his final high school cross country race Friday at the HHSAA/Honolulu Marathon Cross Country Championships at Kaua'i Community College.

"There is a little bit of pressure. I guess I expect myself to do well because it's my senior year," he said.

He said last year, when Hawai'i Prep's Emmett Weatherford passed him at the finish line, it took him about two weeks to get over it.

"All I really remember is that maybe 15 to 20 meters from the finish line, I remember seeing (Weatherford's) hand (on his right side). And then it was a race to the finish line," Kamaka'ala said. "I thought I had it because the tape broke over me."

Weatherford, prompted by the screams of his fans — the race was at Hawai'i Prep — sprinted across the finish line just as Kamaka'ala was finishing, and Kamaka'ala didn't realize he had lost until someone told him.

"That was really a hard race," Kamaka'ala said. "It was hard to focus because it took so much out of me. I was literally exhausted."

He said one thing he learned from that race was to never leave another race in the control of others.

"When you let it out of your hands, that's when they can go bad," he said.

Kamaka'ala's start in running could have been very, very bad.

He started running in the eighth grade "on a whim" after a friend recruited him to the intermediate team. His first race was the Iolani Invitational, where runners made their way around a tough course at Kualoa Ranch.

"I ran with basketball shoes, and they must have weighed about five pounds each," he said. "I still have them as a reminder of how bad I was."

Although the race was brutal, he said he "fell in love with the atmosphere and community" of a cross country meet.

His return to Kualoa since then has been more productive. The past two years he's been the top Hawai'i finisher, with a third-place finish this year and a fifth-place finish in 2004.

During his first cross country season, he went from the squad's last runner, where the "coach would put me in every once in a while," to its second runner.

In the ninth grade he started on the junior varsity team, then moved up to varsity and placed 14th in the state meet.

He also translated his love of distance running to the track, where he is the state's defending 3,000-meter champion. He hopes to continue his running career in college, although he doesn't know where he will be going to school.

But his coach, Steve Jenness, thinks he'll be a success wherever he goes.

"He's a diligent worker," Jenness said. "A very intelligent runner. He has all the little attributes: work ethic, heart and talent. He's very likeable."

Jenness said Kamaka'ala always had the talent, and combines that with hard work, which is why he is so successful.

"He's at practice every day, and if he's not, we know he did the work we needed him to do," Jenness said. "He was like that from day one."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com.