VALDOSTA — It’s really no surprise Joseph Ceasar has been running track since he was a 7-year-old.

Ceasar’s father ran track in high school. His uncle ran and earned scholarship honors in football and track to Auburn. Both his mother and sister ran. 

“It’s kind of a family thing,” the 23-year-old Valdosta native said. 

Although Ceasar’s next meet is Saturday in Birmingham, Ala., he is training for a much larger goal — competing in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The Olympic games begin Aug. 5 and will feature 10,500 athletes from 206 countries.

Ceasar’s dream is bigger than just himself. Although his goal is to get to the Olympics, his journey is also about gaining exposure to Valdosta, encouraging kids to follow their dreams and giving back to the community.

“I want to show people that Valdosta is more than just football,” Ceasar said. “If kids see someone from Valdosta follow their dreams, I think it’ll make it easier for (kids) to follow their’s.”

Ceasar’s dream consists of intense training. The Valdosta High graduate trains five to six days a week. He trains at Valdosta High and Valdosta Middle. He runs around his neighborhood in Hahira. He’ll also drive to Savannah, and occasionally Albany, to train. If he goes out of town for a few days, he always looks for a place to run to keep things as routine as possible.

His off-day is Sunday, when he goes to church and relaxes among family and friends.

“I go right back at it on Monday,” Ceasar said.

Ceasar got hooked on his Olympic dream after watching the “passion and excitement” of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

He became a workhorse as a member of the Valdosta High track and field team. He ran every possible speed event. His best events were the 100-meter dash and 400-meter dash.

Ceasar attends Valdosta State, where he is currently taking a year off to train for the Olympics. Since the university doesn’t have a track and field team, Ceasar signed up for Team USA and runs as an independent.

As an independent runner, everything is placed on Ceasar’s shoulders, including travel and hotel expenses.

“Basically, I research track meets that are going on and sign up for them and try to get resources to get to the track meets,” he said.

The route Ceasar is taking is admittedly a difficult one to traverse, competing against college athletes that have more extensive resources and opportunities.

If Ceasar runs a qualifying time between now and June, he would get an invite to the Olympic trials in July for a shot at joining Team USA in August.

Ceasar remains on the hunt for a sponsor to help alleviate the heavy load of running independently but still has an enormous amount of support bubbling around him. The support ranges from friends at Valdosta State to friends in Texas, family members and even complete strangers.

“It’s always good to have someone you’ve never met to come up and support you and your dream. That’s always awesome,” Ceasar said.

Although Ceasar predominantly trains solo, he occasionally works with good friend Adrian Stewart, a former teammate at Valdosta High and member of the Albany State track team.

After meeting with some Olympic athletes, Ceasar said the most important advice they gave him was to train hard but have fun.

“The days that you don’t want to train, the days where you just want to give up, those are the days that you push the hardest,” he said. “Just tune out the negativity, because people will tell you ‘the Olympics are too big, you can’t do it, you’re just a regular guy from a small town.’”

Ceasar might be a regular guy from a small town, but he’s willing to prove he’s much more than that.

After Saturday’s meet, Ceasar said he plans to sign up for one more track meet, using the indoor season as a measuring stick for his progress.

All of Ceasar’s meets have taken place in the South — Georgia, Florida, Alabama — but he said he wants to eventually branch out, see the states, get a feel for a multitude of tracks across America.

Ceasar said continuing to add muscle mass and fine-tune his mechanics will go a long way toward punching his ticket to Rio next summer.

“I’ve been running off talent all my life,” he said. “It’s been instincts. I’ve never had a coach actually train me and teach me how to run, so I figure once I get a coach to train me and get in the weight room, I’ll be in the Olympics. It’s a no-brainer.

“The speed is there, the confidence is there. I’m just missing the training from a coach and getting more muscle mass.”

Ceasar’s last competition was the first weekend in June after battling back from a lingering hamstring injury he’d endured from high school.

He called his showing in the competition “probably the worst race I’ve had in my career.”

Ceasar said he missed half of his junior season with a hamstring injury, then hurt his back his senior year, sat out for two weeks and rashly returned to competition.

“It was kind of one of those injuries that comes back, aggravates you, and it just so happened during training,” he said. “I messed up the hamstring again, had to sit out. It wasn’t good.

“I thought I could come back and run in the (June) track meet, wish I would not have but, hey, it’s over with.”

Ceasar said he used his hasty return as a learning experience.

The track star said he has plans to resume his courses at Valdosta State next fall, but for now, all his time is dedicated solely on track and an opportunity in Rio.