Denver North’s Kayla Young competed at the Foot Locker Cross County National Championships over the weekend, taking 24th as the only Colorado competitor in the field as the senior continues to pad her running resume.

“I think the race went pretty well,” Kayla Young said. “I was hoping for a little bit better time, but all in all, I think I did the best I could do for the day so I’m really happy with it. It’s a bit of a slower course because you had to go over a big hill twice, and there was a lot of slanted, rough terrain. So I think, comparably, it was a pretty good time.”

Young posted an 18:04.7 at Balboa Park in San Diego, the second occasion she’s competed in the event to add to a list of her accolades that’s highlighted by a dramatic 3A cross-country state championship this fall as well as two runner-up finishes in 4A and two podium finishes in track as a sophomore (second in the 1600m and third in the 3200m).

“In the last half-mile, people were like, ‘You’re gaining on her,'” Young recalled of this season’s narrow 3A title victory over Peak to Peak sophomore Quinn McConnell. “When we came into the finishing stretch, she ended up right in front of me and so I tried to sprint even though my legs were like jelly. I started sprinting, and I feel down, and got back up even though I for sure thought it was over. Then she fell, and fell again, and I just pushed all the way through and crossed the line first.”

And when one figures that Young could easily have four state titles if not for the nationally renowned Katie Rainsberger, a national champion who starred at Air Academy—and who beat Young in all three of her state runner-up finishes in cross country and track—it starts to become clear that Young is one of the best runners to come out of the city of Denver in a long, long time.

But as the University of Arizona commit emphasized, it’s not her own reputation that’s motivated her to keep grinding the last four years—rather, it’s the reputation of her often-overlooked Vikings, a team that she’s worked hard to raise the profile of.

“It’s a smaller program at one of those inner-city schools that doesn’t get a lot of recognition, and I think I’ve helped bring it up,” Young said. “And our team is really young—we had a lot of freshman girls this year—so I hope I’ve set a good example in terms of how to go about things, and I think they’ll contend for a state championship without me here soon.”