ASHLAND – Since leaving Southern Oregon University in 2014 as arguably the most accomplished men's runner in school history, Eric Avila's foray into the world of professional running has included several highs sprinkled around one debilitating low.

Next week, the fruit of his labor will be an appearance in the U.S. Olympic Trials 1,500-meter field at Hayward Field in Eugene. A year removed from a lost season – his first as a pro, which was shut down after he was diagnosed with iron-deficiency anemia – Avila ran the 1,500 in 3 minutes 38.30 seconds last Sunday in an impromptu, last-chance meet at Oregon State's Whyte Track and Field Center.

Competing for Team Run Eugene (with a sponsorship from Hoka One One), Avila was racing for the third time in nine days and beat the clock with just hours left to submit final entries for the Olympic Trials. The mark put him in a 30-person field that will run the first round on July 7, the semifinals on July 8 and the final on July 10.

In 2014, a month after winning the 1,500-meter NAIA championship, Avila placed 10th at the U.S. Track and Field Outdoor Championships with a time of 3:41.29. That mark stood as his personal best until last Sunday.

The latest hunt for a qualifying time started on June 18 at the Brooks PR Meet in Seattle, where bad weather and an off day (which Avila attributed to going out too fast) resulted in him dropping out during the last lap. Five days later, at the Stumptown Twilight in Portland, he battled more bad weather and felt he went out too slow but still managed a time of 3:41.34 and went from 13th place to fifth during the last lap.

Avila, along with his agent and coach, believed one more chance in favorable weather could get him to the Olympic Trials. There was only one problem: they had no meet planned and only three days to do it.

Below are excerpts from an interview Avila did with souraiders.com this week to talk about how he pulled it off and the ups and downs of his career to this point:

If you can, paint a picture of exactly how everything came together to make that last meet happen and just how hectic it was.

When I ran in Seattle [on June 18] the weather was really crummy – just super windy and not ideal, especially considering that the difference in qualifying or not could come down to half-seconds. Five days later I was racing in Portland and there was a torrential downpour that completely messed with the pacing again. I just needed a mark, though. There was a 14-month period to hit it, and unfortunately I was injured all of last year, but I knew during the last six weeks or so that I was in good enough shape to do it. Like, [Olympian and 2016 Indoor World Champion] Matt Centrowitz Jr. won the race in Portland but my last lap was faster than his, so I thought if I ran smarter I could take at least couple seconds off. I mean, I almost PR'd and ran like an idiot, tactically.

So that left you with three days to get a mark but no idea where to get it. Where do you go from there?

Right. So [last Thursday night] I'm driving back from Portland after the race and talking to my coach [2008 Olympian Ian Dobson] and we're looking at meets, but the only ones left were in Philadelphia and Toronto. The next morning Dobson said he was going to try to put together his own meet – but that meant finding somewhere to do it, getting someone to run a proper timing system, getting certified officials, bringing in enough runners to make it an official meet and getting a rabbit. We tried for Hayward Field and couldn't get it approved; we tried for Willamette and couldn't get it approved; we tried for Lane Community College and couldn't get it approved. It got kind of political, but finally Oregon State's track coach thought he could make it happen and my job was just to collect the athletes. So I'm messaging anyone I can on Facebook – and we're talking elite athletes, only 15 to 20 in the country who can run the pace we needed. Eventually I got ahold of Daniel Herrera, who was a 3:57 miler from UCLA living in Portland, and a kid from Oregon, Sam Prakel, who was a 3:56 miler and just finished fifth at the NCAA Championships. We got the minimum of five that we needed to make it official and we also needed a minimum of three events, so we just added the steeplechase and the 800.

By the time you got it all together, how were you able to focus on the running part, considering this was maybe the most important race of your life?

Honestly, I was kind of freaking out. But then part of me was like, I have nothing to lose. I drove from Eugene to Corvallis and the weather was perfect, the gun went off and everyone just got behind me. It was pretty weird: There was no one in the stands and just like 20 people on the track screaming at us.

If all goes well, you'd race three times in four days at the Olympic Trials, which is pretty unusual. Do you think that format favors you as opposed to a one-race time trial?

I'm not a huge time trial guy. I think the rounds will favor me because I'm used to it and think I'm a pretty strong athlete. I'm a racer, not a time-trialer. If I'm there, everything else goes out the window. I guess I'm just confident in my own tactics, so I'm happy we can throw out the clock.

Last year, your first full season as a professional runner, you were putting up some kind of head-scratching times compared to what you'd done in the past, and then you find out you're anemic. What was that like, and was there ever a point when you thought, I'm in my mid-20s, there's a chance my best races are behind me and it might be time to move on?

Definitely. Last year was really hard and I started questioning a lot of things. I told [SOU head coach Grier Gatlin] that it felt like studying for a test that I put a lot of energy into, getting back the grade and it's a zero. You're like, 'What!' It just didn't make sense in my mind. It was demoralizing . I thought maybe this is just how it is to be a pro: You're always tired. All the sudden I wasn't racing every weekend, my sponsors weren't calling me, my agent wasn't calling me as often, and I get it, but it's a double-edged sword. I started looking at grad school and other options, and for a while there I just didn't know. I knew I wasn't gonna retire until my contract was up at the end of 2017 but I wasn't really sure what was next, especially when I moved from Ashland to Eugene last fall. I remember thinking I should've been doing internships and all this other stuff I sacrificed to run, but now I've made sure to put my foot in other options. I'm doing some marketing work with Hoka, so maybe down the road I can work in the marketing department. I also work with a non-profit in Eugene, so if I have an off-day my world isn't just running.

A couple months ago you said you felt more comfortable in the 5K than the 1,500. What changed?

I was doing a lot of mileage so the mile just felt so fast, like I was just sprinting, and it was uncomfortable. But once we hit a different training block and backed off my mileage, my legs had more pop. I was winning races in the 1,500 and just kind of in the middle of the pack in the 5K. It's not something I planned on, though.

Now that you've been in it a couple years, what have you learned about training or lifestyle that you'd apply to your college days if you could go back?

I guess the main thing is that you have to be responsible for yourself. You have coaches bugging you like mom and dad in college, and that's not really there anymore. I still meet my coach two or three times a week but it's up to me to get it done day in and day out; you have to be your own biggest cheerleader. The second-biggest thing is to have a more well-rounded lifestyle, because it's easy in our sport to think eat, sleep, run. But it's physiologically impossible to have a linear progression and run a PR every race, so if you bank on that you're setting yourself up for failure.