He began the season as our number one, running extremely well early on even outside the context of our team that routinely starts very slowly. In addition to it being a nice surprise, it was a good kick in the ass for our returning #1, who got pretty competitive over the displacement. But it happened it in a pretty affirmative way, and the two of them just spent all of September going after each other in workouts.

Regrettably, he got a kind of weird injury in early October that tabled him for a couple weeks. It had an effect on his fitness, but a way more lasting one on his racing confidence. You could see him become more conservative in workouts and then in races. We worked pretty hard to pull him out of that, but it never quite took. He finished the season running as a strong #2 for us (our #1 took a nice leap and ended the season as our best XC runner in a half-decade) but it wasn't his best.

The good news is that he's running indoor instead of playing basketball. He also seems pretty comfortable (though we'll see once practice starts and the allure of sprinting becomes more real) with the 800m. I actually want him in the mile and two-mile, but he'll be a good half-mile guy for us and he's more comfortable with that.