Athletes from local metro-area college outdoor track-and-field teams recently were singled out for their spring performances by earning 2026 all-conference honors.
Some of those athletes also are participating in various NCAA championship meets at different levels of competitions.
Track-and-field seasons are wrapping up in coming days across the metro area for the 2025-26 high-school year with outdoor championship meets on district, conference, region and state levels.
Starting this week, girls and boys teams will compete in district and conference events, with region and state championships to follow.
A rhyming nickname of “fantastic” is used by some to describe what quickly has become a popular annual high-school track-and-field meet held at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax.
The large four-year-old girls and boys outdoor event called the Ramtastic Invitational recently was held all day on Saturday, April 11. There were athletes from 34 schools from throughout the metro area.
On your mark, get set, go!
For those involved or interested in the springtime’s high school outdoor track-and-field seasons throughout the metro area, the campaign is about to explode with many big events in coming days and weeks.
Once prohibited in Arlington County, pole vaulting is now allowed, and the event has become quite popular at two public high schools in the county.
With the 2026 outdoor spring high-school season now underway, a number of vaulters from Arlington schools, girls and boys, are expected to be among the best during regular-season and postseason meets.
In Albuquerque, Georgetown’s team of Emma Keenan, Heather Martin, Andrea Keklak and Katrina Coogan won the NCAA indoor championships March 11, running 10:57.21, ahead of the University of Washington’s 10:58.52. The next afternoon, Coogan finished third in the 3,000 meters, running 9:07.74 to Molly Siedel‘s (Notre Dame) 8:57.86, and Keklak finished fourth in the mile in 4:38.44, behind Oklahoma State runner Kaela Edwards‘ 4:35.62.
Loundoun County alumnus Thomas Curtain, running for Virginia Tech, finished second in the 5,000 meters, running 13:50.70 to trail Oregon’s Edward Cheserek‘s 13:47.89. The next day, Cheserek held a 8:00.40 – 8:01:55 lead over Stanford’s Sean McGorty, a Chantilly alumnus, in the 3,000 meters. Ahmed Bile, an Annandale alumnus who runs for Georgetown, was 14th in 8:24.15.
Dan Reeks believes in running. He knows what running did for him, and knows what running can do for others.
He started coaching in Montgomery County 43 years ago, during his early 20s. Back then he was a volunteer assistant for Paint Branch High School, and not necessarily volunteering by choice, either. Reeks, then a national-class runner, said he was concerned about an Amateur Athletic Union rule limiting how much money one could earn through coaching.