Track has certainly started their season with a bang. At the second meet of the season, 4×800 senior runners James Warner, Nate Maples, Luke Nottmeyer, and Sam Bland held the fastest time in the state at 8 minutes and 15 seconds. The 4×800 consists of a relay between four runners, and two laps per runner, handing off a baton as they go. Each runner was chosen or chose this event for different reasons.
“I chose this event personally because I love relays and I’m a distance runner so it’s the best of both worlds,” Nottmeyer said.
The four boys went on to win gold in this two-mile event at the St. Dominic meet with a time of 8 minutes and 19 seconds, just a few seconds off their personal meet record.
“We’re top 4 in the event, and it’s an event we take very seriously at St. Charles High, we’ve been known to be very good at it, we take pride in running it,” Warner said.
The team takes their practices seriously, hoping to continue shaving that time down more and more.
“We’ll definitely improve by the end of the year, maybe even beat the school record (8:01:38 in 2018) if we try hard enough. I think we could,” Bland said.
The boys seem confident in their abilities, and hope to go to state for the event, since it is their senior year.
“We’ve always got to keep practicing and working hard. We’re a really close team, time wise, so it’s always good to race against each other and push each other,” Maples said.
The team is ready to continue running faster, and have a common goal of shorting their two laps down to two minutes each. They all seem to enjoy their sport, and like running with each other.
“With it being my senior year, [I’m looking forward to] enjoying it with my teammates, track is an individual sport but when a group of people come together and are selfless about going towards one goal, that makes it so much fun,” Nottmeyer said.
