To our athletes, coaches, fans, and editors: thank you.
The 2025 outdoor track and field season is now in the books, and what a season it was. We saw jaw-dropping records, some unforgettable battles down the stretch, and thousands of stories worth telling. But as we close the chapter on this year, what stands out most isn't just what happened on the stopwatch or the measuring tape. It's what happened between the moments. It's the community behind every performance, the people who showed up, over and over again, regardless of conditions, attention, or outcome.
Because that's what this sport requires and rewards.
It's you, showing up to every practice even when you were wrecked from an interval session or your mind was fried from a big test. It's your coach, working tireless hours in the classroom but still finding time to gameplan, respond to emails, and giving up weekends to chase a better version of you. It's your parents, who might desperately need a morning to sleep in but are somehow up before you, making sure your bag is packed and your snacks are ready. It's the meet directors, juggling paperwork, weather, and finances just to make sure the event even happens. It's the timers, rushing to input fifty last-minute entries from a school that forgot to register just to give athletes the opportunity to compete. It's the columnist who sees value in your journey, even if it won't earn him clicks like the football team would. It's the state associations, tasked with upholding the rules and structure of the sport, even when it's not the popular thing to do. It's the officials, showing up for the love of it, doing the invisible work that makes it all fair.
That's the backbone of this sport. And it matters more than anything else.
Because track and field isn't built for viral moments or instant fame. It's a brutally honest pursuit. It's repetition, discomfort, discipline. The middle reps are the ones no one claps for and they're also the ones that make you better. Improvement isn't linear, and attention is rarely equal. But you showed up anyway.
You showed up when the conditions weren't perfect. You showed up when no one was watching. You ran hard, jumped high, threw far, coached with heart, and wrote with passion. You squeezed meaning and momentum out of a sport that demands everything and, more often than not, gives very little back in the way of exposure. This year wasn't about one breakthrough. It was about all of you, together, raising the standard.
The headlines this year were huge. We saw Quincy Wilson rewrite history this weekend with a 44.10 to become the fastest U18 quarter-miler of all time. We watched Tate Taylor blaze a 9.92 in the 100m and 20.14 in the 200m, both as a junior. Jane Hedengren broke four national records this season, yes, four. She became the first U.S. high school girl to break 15:00 in the 5000m (14:57.93), shattered the mile record with a 4:23.50, took down the 2 mile with a 9:17.75, and finished it all off with a historic 8:40.03 in the 3000m at Nike Outdoor Nationals. Cooper Lutkenhaus went 1:45.45 in the 800m, the fastest by a U.S. high schooler in nearly 30 years. University of Miami-bound Jackson Cantwell made the shot ring shake with a 76-11.25 in the shot put.
These were the extraordinary, but you were too. Whether you set a record or simply set your alarm. Whether you made the podium or made it to practice. Whether your name was trending or your effort went unseen. You were part of something real.
And we couldn't tell those stories without our editorial team and the nearly 1,200 contributors who powered the MileSplit network. State by state, day by day, meet by meet, they showed up too. From blistering state meet weekends to late-night uploads, they made sure your moments had a spotlight. We couldn't have done it without them.
Alabama - Sean Allan
California - Joshua Potts
Colorado - Marissa Kuik
Florida - Mark Stonecipher
Georgia - Ryan McClay
Kentucky - Chris Hawboldt
Louisiana - Jerry Byrd
Maine - Derek Veilleux
Mississippi - Bennett Ferguson
Missouri+Kansas - Kyle Deeken
New Jersey - Robert Kellert
New York - Kyle Brazeil
North Carolina - Jason Creasy
Ohio - Mark Dwyer, David Nguyen
Oklahoma - Shawn Rutledge
Pennsylvania - Austin Melius
South Carolina - John Olson
Tennessee - Ben Thompson
Texas - Will Grundy
Virginia - Nolan Jez
Wyoming - Scott Shaffer
USA - Maxx Bradley, Kyle Brazeil, David Scott
To everyone who took part in this season, whether you were at the front of the pack or the back, we want to say this:
You got better.
Not because of one workout or one race, but because you kept showing up. Again and again. That's what this sport is about. Running is simple but it's never easy. And trying to do it well is harder than most people will ever understand.
Run hard. Run more. Run slow. Run fast. Run when your legs are cooked. Ease back even when you feel like you could do one more. Go to bed early. Lift weights even though it's not your thing. Work on your core even though the benefits don't feel immediately gratifying.
That's the grind and sacrifice that comes with being a track and field athlete. Life is a mix of doing what you want and doing what you know is good for you.
Thanks for being part of this. We can't wait to see what's next.