After a 19th place finish at the Indoor Big Ten Track and Field Championships, true freshman Logan Measner sat down in Head Coach Mick Byrne’s office to recap his indoor season and outline his steps for the spring.
After coming off an injury that sidelined him for half of his first cross country season, Measner and his coach decided to redshirt his jersey for the spring and begin a long rebuild in preparation for the 2023-2024 season. That was before they saw him steeplechase. 2 months later, donning a plain jersey, Measner stepped off the track well ahead of the competition after 2000 meters in his debut.
That’s when things changed.
From running in a small town in Jefferson, Wisconsin, to running at Drake University, Rylee Miller has always been an athlete, has always competed, and has always succeeded at a high level in athletics.
Not only has he competed at a high level in athletics, but he’s also had to compete with his health and well-being, which is something that he has more than succeeded in.
In elementary school, Rylee found out that he had a heart condition called Ventricular Dyssynchrony. This is a condition where the heart has narrowed blood vessels and the chambers of the heart struggle to pump blood at the correct time, causing difficulty doing basic tasks and possibly losing consciousness.
Running track and cross country may appear to be one of the most individually centered sports out there.
You must stay in your own lane for many events, and there’s no real sense of defense or legal ways to impede on your opponents’ abilities – you’ll be disqualified for blatantly cutting off or knocking over your competitors. Like golf, swimming, and tennis, many distance runners spend a significant portion of their days training, stacking repetitions, concerned with their breathing, tempo, and other factors within their control.
Though it can certainly be an isolating sport, the story of Madison native Caleb Easton provides young runners extremely valuable advice in terms of dealing with the adversity that exists in the sport, whether injuries or the inherent nature of comparison and self-doubt – especially at the highest level.
Sports from Madison, Wisconsin, and the world.
