Aledo star runner Graydon Morris is entering elite company after latest gold medal
Aledo’s Graydon Morris is entering elite status.
The junior captured his second-straight UIL 5A cross country state title on Nov. 3 in Round Rock.
Morris, who finished third as a freshman, is also a three-time district and regional champion.
“Over the summer, I started incorporating strength sessions into my weekly training schedule,” Morris said. “The reason being was to cut down on injury and pay attention to the muscles that get overlooked.”
By district, he realized he had a chance to repeat.
“I was running to see how fast I could go solo and ended up keeping all three miles sub-5 minutes,” he said.
Morris finished the district meet with a time of 15:06.4 which was over 20 seconds better than runner-up. He beat that time at the regional meet with 14:34.4 which was nearly 40 seconds better than second.
“We had a hard fast session the week leading up to state and the following days were all easy in order to recover and be ready,” Morris said. “I was pretty nervous before the race just because the quality of the athletes I was going to be racing, but felt confident in my abilities.”
Morris didn’t have a great start, but found a nice rhythm during the second mile. Winds of up to 30 mph didn’t help matters, but Morris pushed through and finished in 15:03.98.
