Peachtree – After qualifying for last year’s cross-country state championship and building on it with strong outdoor track seasons, Andrews sophomore O’Malley Salinas and Hiwassee Dam junior Ethan Russell have both gotten off to flying starts this year.
Salinas, the defending N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A state champion, set a new personal record with a time of 16 minutes, 26.90 seconds during the Aug. 23 meet at Hayesville. Russell, who finished second to Salinas at that meet, broke the Eagles’ school record by nearly 25 seconds with a time of 16:51.40.
The duo went 1-2 again at the Tri-County Early College Jaguar Jungle Run. The course is a challenging one, but Salinas’ time of 16:45.20 was 57 seconds faster than he ran at the same meet last year. Russell’s time of 16:57.10 was nearly two minutes faster.
Salinas said he built on his outdoor track success with some good training this summer. He’s been working with Christ School coach Randy Ashley to come up with a plan for this fall, and it’s a little different than what Salinas has done before. It’s been more about consistency, what Salinas calls “a lot of B+ work,” instead of just going all-out all the time.
“It’s a good bit of mileage,” Salinas said. “It’s kind of tough not going all out in workouts and holding back. But that’s what you gotta do if you want to run fast times at the end of the season.”
The competition schedule looks different for Salinas this year as well. The Hayesville and Tri-County meets are the only local meets he’s planning on running this year, as it’s enough for him to qualify for the Smoky Mountain Conference championship Saturday, Oct. 14. He’s planning to run at a few bigger invitational meets, including one Friday on the state championship course at Ivey Redmon Sports Complex in Kernersville.
It’s a way to see some different and stronger competition, plus help push himself to his season goals of breaking 15:30 as well as repeating as 1A state champion. The latter will be a challenge once again, as Christ the King junior Blake Nicholson has already set a fast standard for the 1A classification by running a 15:57.50 during the Carolinas Kickoff in Indian Trail on Aug. 26.
“My mentality is every time I toe the line,” Salinas said, “I know I’m about to go all-out.”
Russell said he “found a love” for running during outdoor track season last spring, and it carried over into his training this summer. After grinding through some tough workouts this summer, he was ready to race but did not expect to go as fast as he did in Hayesville.
“I just kind of gave it everything I had there to test it out,” Russell said. “It’s a lot better than I thought it would be.”
The time at Tri-County was Russell’s second-fastest ever, but going under 17 minutes for only the second time proved his run the previous week wasn’t a fluke. It’s a bit closer to Russell’s end-of-season goal than he thought he would be at this point, which is to go under 16 minutes. He also wants to finish in the top three in the state meet, which is daunting considering that last year’s top-three finishers in Salinas, Nicholson and Northside-Pinetown junior Andrew Harding all return. But the drive and motivation is there. Now Russell knows he just needs to keep putting the work in and see how far that gets him.
“I just like to run,” Russell said. “It’s fun, and it’s tough. I just like to compete – I like to compete a lot.”