Image: Senior Wyatt Hall takes the lead in last year’s Brian Lewis Invitational. Courtesy @SACCDS Instagram

Making his way to the front of the starting line, New Balance shoes on his feet and a personal best time in his head, Senior Wyatt Hall is ready to run.

Wyatt has been training for cross country and track races since the fifth grade. On Oct. 31, he competed in the Cross Country Boys Sacramento Metropolitan Athletic League (SMAL). He won first place in the boys’ varsity category with a time of 18:31 for the 5k run.

“I’ve been working really hard at running for a while, so to see some results was a huge moment for me,” Wyatt said.

Wyatt’s mindset going into races is to set goals and benchmarks throughout the race. Wyatt says it’s important to focus while running competitively, especially at a winning pace.

“If you’re going for a place on the podium, you want to think about a strategy like finding other runners to pace off so you can get the place you want,” Wyatt said.

Wyatt’s typical pace goal for this cross country season was below 18 minutes. Now, after training consistently, his time is moving down to below 17 minutes.

“Sub 18 minutes is around five minutes and 40 seconds per mile. Sub 17 minutes is five minutes and 24 seconds per mile,” Wyatt said.

Wyatt prefers running during the track season because of the flat terrain, though he does not mind the hills in cross country.

As a freshman, he competed in the 2021 Sac-Joaquin Section Championships, where he won the division five freshman race. In his junior year, he added to his list of accomplishments by winning seventh place at the 2023 Sac-Joaquin Section Championships division five varsity race. In that same year, he qualified for the California State cross country championships.

Wyatt has been SMAL Varsity Champion this year and the first team all-league. Aside from those achievements, Wyatt’s most memorable moment was relaying in the California International Marathon last year with his dad.

“My dad ran the first half. I ran the second half. That was a ton of fun. It was the longest race I had ever run,” Wyatt said. “We were just under three and a half hours for our total time.”

Like the up and downhills of cross country courses, Wyatt’s running journey has had its highs and lows. Last track season, Wyatt was recovering from a knee injury. The tendons weakened because of overuse from training. When the cross country season started in July, Wyatt’s injury hadn’t recovered. He was not able to return to his practices until September.

Since his recovery, Wyatt practices for one to two hours every weekday. There are different workouts for each day.

“There are long run days where you do a long run and shorter run days where you run shorter distances, multiple times, at a faster pace, and then variations of each,” Wyatt said.

Junior Vann Bolman is a member of the Country Day track team along with Wyatt. He believes Wyatt’s positive attitude keeps his energy up and helps him stay positive during practice.

“Seeing as you’re always running to get your new fastest time, people like Wyatt are always there to remind you of the end goal and to keep pushing through the difficult times,” Bolman said.

Additionally, Wyatt has been training at practices with freshman Carly Townend.

“He never complains about having to run and he’s just always ready to go, and that motivates me because sometimes the mental aspect of running can be really hard to navigate, and it’s great to have a teammate who’s like that,” Townend said. “He’s great at cheering everybody on during their races.”

Wyatt’s coaches also had a role in helping him improve as a runner. The current cross country coach, Kristoffer Hall, is Wyatt’s dad. Kristoffer has coached Wyatt for the past four years and is now head coach of the Country Day Cross Country Team.

Kristoffer said Wyatt had a great running foundation coming out of middle school. Having run since fifth grade for Country Day, he transitioned very well to high school cross country.

“It has been great watching him develop a love for the sports, both cross country and track,” Kristoffer said. “As he progressed into his junior and senior years, he definitely became a better runner, but also improved his general strategy on how to run each race, which has served him well in the last two years.”

Wyatt believes that one of the reasons he has been able to improve so much is having constant access to a coach, his dad.

“It’s interesting because he wasn’t the head coach for most of my seasons on the team. It helps to have the head coach right there if I ever need anything,” Wyatt said.

What keeps Wyatt running is the enjoyment of the sport and his improvement over time.

“I’ve been consistently getting better at running my entire life. I enjoy seeing the improvement and mainly seeing the results of all that hard work,” Wyatt said.

The advice that Kristoffer gave to Wyatt that stood out to him was that all the training and hard work was a sacrifice to compete in the top races.

“We work hard to get to the big races. It’s OK to enjoy these big moments and have some fun,” Kristoffer said.

Although Wyatt does not plan to get recruited for college, he plans to join his future college’s junior varsity squad to keep on running throughout his college career.

For many, crossing the finish line is just the end of a race. But, for Wyatt, it marks the beginning of races yet to come.