His cross-country season and career with the Chantilly Chargers concluded in grand fashion for Tristan Thurneysen.
The senior high-school runner won a triple crown of postseason championships during a recent three-week span, capped by finishing first in the Virginia High School League Class 6 boys state meet Nov. 16 on the 5,000-meter Oatlands Plantation course in Leesburg.
Thurneysen’s winning time was 15:50, seven seconds in front of runner-up Trent Daniels of Gainesville High School.
“Winning state was the highlight of my career so far,” Thurneysen told FFXnow.
Prior to the state meet, Thurneysen won Concorde District and 6D North Region championships on the 2.98-mile Burke Lake Park course.
The three championships were especially sweet for Thurneysen, because he finished second in each race last fall, twice to then Oakton senior standout Junior Allen in close district and region meets.
“Winning districts, region and states were on my bucket list this season,” Thurneysen said. “It was kind of annoying to finish second in all three last season.”
At this year’s state meet, the pace was slow. Thurneysen made his move by breaking away from the lead pack around the two-mile mark.
“I made some moves after that to increase my lead,” Thurneysen said.
Thurneysen’s 2024 season began slowly because he was dealing with a right hip issue. He missed the first few weeks of the season while cross-training to get healthy.
“I chose to be very conservative, so we took some time off and then slowly worked him back into running,” Chantilly cross-country coach Andy Tramel said. “We basically lost the month of September. But in the big picture, I knew it was better to get him healthy and then work back into shape in October to be able to be ready to run at state.”
Thurneysen was still training and wasn’t in his best shape yet for the region and district meets.
“States was really the first race he would have his fitness back to where we were in late August,” Tramel said.
Said Thurneysen: “That was mentally challenging, because I wanted to run and had such big goals this season.”
Next for Thurneysen in cross country is the Nov. 23 Nike Southeast Regional high-school boys meet in Cary, N.C. He is hoping to finish high enough in the race to earn a berth into the national Nike meet.
During the winter and spring for Chantilly, Thurneysen will be competing for the Chargers’ indoor and outdoor track and field teams as primarily a miler and two-miler.
In college, Thurneysen will be running on scholarship for Syracuse University.
At this year’s state meet, Thurneysen’s victory helped the Chantilly boys finish fifth in the team standings. Jack Morgan finished fifth (16:11) for Chantilly.
The Centreville Wildcats were second in the boys race with 85 points and the South Lakes Seahawks fourth with 129. The Woodbridge Vikings won with 78 points.
Leading Centreville were Elijah Post in sixth (16:17) and Danny McGlynn in 12th (16:21). For South Lakes, George Hood was 25th (16:48) and Jason Raffel 27th (16:50).
The Robinson Rams were seventh in the team standings, the West Springfield Spartans eighth and the Jefferson Colonials 11th.
For Robinson, Josel Gruendel was 19th (16:40). For West Springfield, Jack Pritchard finished 33rd (17:02), and Jefferson’s Will Fadden was 17th (16:37).
