Distance Runners Earns Readers' and Editors' Choice Awards

Track and field fans voiced their choices in this week's DyeStat's Performance of the Week poll, while DyeStat's editors made their own selection.

Readers’ Choice: William Chaffin

With 18.01 percent of the vote, William Chaffin won our Readers’ Choice vote, beating Jenna Hutchins with her second-place tally of 14.82 percent.

The Concord-Carlisle MA senior has made fantastic improvement throughout his high school cross country career. Chaffin did not start out as a high school star. He finished 46th at the MIAA All State Cross Country Championships as a sophomore.

A year ago, Chaffin improved to 18th. He went on to place 15th at the NXR Northeast Regional. It was a fantastic junior season, but Chaffin still had room for growth.

After finishing runner-up at the MIAA All State Cross Country Championships, Chaffin ran the best race of his high school cross country career, winning the NXR Northeast Regional with a time of 15:49.

Watch the race on NikeCrossNationals.com.

Chaffin won by one second over Jack McLoughlin and Lisandro Berry-Gaviria. It was a close race until the end, with five runners in contention until the final final stretch toward the finish.

Now, Chaffin will make his first ever trip to NXN where he will take on some of the country's best high school distance runners in Portland.

Editors’ Choice: Joshua Cheptegei

There were many fantastic high school performances this week. There were 12 regional champions crowned in NXR and Foot Locker regional events. The California State Meet also provided several historic performances.

However, this week's editors' award goes to a professional runner who capped an already fantastic year with a world record. Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda ran 26:38 over 10K on the roads of Valencia, Spain, to take six seconds off the nine-year-old world record.

Billed as a world-record attempt from the beginning, Cheptegei worked with three pacemakers to help break the gusty winds in the first half of the race before he took over on the drive toward the finish. He reached halfway in 13:23, just one second off the recently set road 5K world record.

Cheptegei started his year off with winning the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. He followed that with winning the 5,000 meters at the Diamond League Final. In October, Cheptegei won the 10,000 meters at the IAAF World Outdoor Championships in a personal-best 26:48.36. Last month, Cheptegei ran a world-best 41:05 over 15K.

Cheptegei's road 10K world record brings his 2019 season to an end. Next year he will face Mo Farah on the track in the 10,000 at the Olympics.