Frontier’s Evan Hedlund has only been competing in the mile for a short period of time, but you’d never know it by how fast he can run it. 

Hedlund — just an eighth grader — specializes in running the 2-mile, but decided to give the mile a try during the indoor track season this winter to see how he liked it. 

That turned out to be a good decision. After the indoor season ended, Hedlund looked into national meets to see if he had the times to qualify. What he learned was that at the middle school level, the 2-mile isn’t offered, rather the mile is the only distant event he would be able to qualify for. 

When he looked into the qualifying times of the Nike Indoor National Meet in New York City, he found that his time of five minutes in the mile would qualify him for the race, with the qualifying standard set at 5:15. 

Hedlund entered his name and received an email back that he had been accepted, as he’ll head to The Armory in New York City on Friday to compete against the best middle school runners in the country. 

“I didn’t find out I had the time to qualify until after the season was over,” Hedlund said. “After the Division 5 state meet I was sad the season was over. I was looking at nationals hoping that I’d be able to qualify next year for the high school race. I found the middle school qualifying standards, realized the time was 15 seconds slower than I ran and saw I could qualify. A few minutes later I got an email back saying I was invited.” 

While it’ll be the biggest meet Hedlund has ever run, he’s more than prepared for it. He’s been wanting to make a trip to nationals since he found out about its existence and is eager to compete against the best runners in the country. 

“The biggest meet I’ve ever been to is the Division 5 state meet at the Reggie Lewis Center,” Hedlund said. “I’ve been wanting to go to nationals since I found out it existed last April. I started training hard and I knew I’d get there someday, I just didn’t think it’d be this soon.” 

Hedlund has been running road races nearly his entire life, winning his first race at his elementary school as a fourth grader. When he got to Frontier as a seventh grader he decided to give cross country a try and found he enjoyed distance running. 

“If track was a fall sport I probably would have done sprints,” Hedlund said. “I did cross country and I’m glad I did because I wouldn’t be as good in sprints. I started running cross country and I was better at it than I thought I would be.”

Hedlund continued running distance events during the outdoor track season as a seventh grader. That year he found out about Leo and Lex Young, distance running twins from California who are now competing at Stanford. 

He saw the way they trained and the effort they put into trying to be the best, and it hooked him on the sport. 

“They inspired me,” he said. “I don’t know why but I didn’t know you could push running that hard in high school. They were running the mile in four minutes as juniors. That made me want to run harder and try to compete in national meets.” 

Running cross country again this fall as an eighth grader helped get him ready for the winter season. He said having to compete on trails, hills and in different weather conditions made running on a track a little easier.

“It helps so much with endurance,” Hedlund said. “You get to train on hills and when training you do longer runs because the races are longer. There’s no track race until you get to college, that’s a 5K. You get to train in different conditions and on different surfaces. It really gets you ready for the track season.” 

Hedlund had to learn how to run the mile this winter. He was used to the 2-mile race where pain was spread throughout, whereas the mile you have to run as fast as you can the whole time. 

The first time he ran the mile he wasn’t as tired as he should have been afterward, and went into the next race with a goal of being sore. He feels that being so new to the race is an advantage, as he’s continuing to learn and grow. 

As for how he’ll fare against the nation’s best on Friday? After spending the last month training as hard as he can by running 50 miles a week, doing hard workouts on the track and threshold workouts, he believes he can run a time that will put him in contention. 

“My goal is to run 4:40 for the mile,” Hedlund said. “It’s a lofty goal but I really haven’t run the mile that much. When I did I was just trying it out and nobody was chasing me. With higher stakes I think I can hit 4:40. I’ve been training for that. If I run that time it would have won nationals last year so I’m hoping I can do that and win it.” 

Hedlund’s race will begin at 3:58 p.m. on Friday in New York. 

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