Christian Groendyk had every reason to get the boy's 1,600 over with as quickly as possible.
Saturday night was Prom Night for Fort Collins.
And he had around 70-miles to drive, and hey, driving on I-25 most days is like navigating your way through a parking lot. You almost always have to go around through Aurora on I-225 and gamble on 270.
That Denver traffic can be brutal.
A lap into the boy's 1,600 it was clear this race would be a real burner - they went out just over 61-seconds. And the pedal remained on the floor through the 800, which they passed right around 2:05.
The third lap was where this race was made. It was the lap that hinted at what's to come.
And what's coming are quite a few intense races at JeffCo in another three weeks, because there is no one dominate runner in the boy's 5A distance field this year - there are several.
With 400 meters of track to go there was Groendyk, Tyler Downs, and Benjamin Anderson in chase.
Groendyk and Downs played the role of pacer through the majority of the latter half of this race, though it would go down to who kicked last.
And that would be Groendyk.
The Fort Collins senior torched the final 200 meters to run a Colorado No. 1 and personal best of 4:12.86. Add that it was a meet record. Downs was a close second in 4:14, while Anderson was third in 4:17.
Groendyk headed back to Fort Collins with some bragging rights on Prom Night.
The 2023 edition of the Stutler Twilight definitely lived up to the hype!