Cross country: Princeton’s Augustus Swanson shows steady improvement

All any cross country runner wants to do is improve each time they run, setting PRs (Personal Records) along the way.

Princeton’s Augustus Swanson did that and then some from his freshmen year to his sophomore season.

Swanson cut his average time off about 45 seconds in a year’s time.

He led all area runners at the Gary Coates Invitational, Three Rivers Conference, Class 1A Seneca Regional and Class 1A Oregon Sectional meets.

He was named as the MVP for the Princeton boys team.

For all of his accomplishments, Swanson is the 2023 BCR Male Cross Country Runner of the Year.

Swanson was pleased with his overall season.

“It felt pretty good. I improved my times and we did pretty good as a team for the amount of runners we had,” he said.

Swanson was sixth (16:47) in Princeton’s own Gary Coates Invitational and 15th (18:17.12) at the Three Rivers Meet at Kewanee.

In the postseason, he had an eighth-place finish (18:38.8) at the Seneca Regional and placed 32nd (17:48.58) at the Oregon Sectional.

“My sectionals was pretty good. It’s a hilly race,” Swanson said.

Longtime PHS coach Pat Hodge’s breakdown of Swanson’s season shows how far he has come in a year’s time.

“Augustus showed excellent improvement over last year. He averaged about 45 seconds faster per meet. When converting the various courses down to exactly 3 miles, he improved his best time from 17:33 to 17:16,” Hodge said. “However, the two toughest courses we ran on were the Seneca Regional and the Oregon Sectional. When comparing those two courses to how kids ran at State, his improvement goes from 17:29 to 16:46 with the Oregon Sectional being his best race. "

Hodge notes that Swanson saved his best races for last, making considerable improvement from regional (11 places better) and sectional (42 places) races as a freshmen.

“I thought that his two best races were at regional and sectional. He looked a lot stronger in the middle of those two races,” he said. “At regional, he improved from 19th place to eighth place running 27 seconds faster on a Seneca course which was much wetter and slower than 2022. His improvement at sectional was even better, going from 74th place to 32nd place. His time there went from 19:07 to 17:48 even though the Oregon course was running a little bit slower than last year.

“It’s hard to say how much improvement we’ll see in the future as that varies from individual to individual, but hopefully, he’ll continue to improve at a steady rate.”

Swanson, who was about 20 seconds from qualifying for state, knows what it’s going to take to take the next step.

“A lot of heard work and dedication. Just got to push every practice and work as a team to get where you want to be,” he said. “Going to need to push myself that much harder and keep working.”

A top-ranked wrestler in the state, Swanson is no stranger to hard work. He says both sports help one another on his focus and endurance.

The Augustus Swanson File:

* BCR Runner of the Year

* First Team Three Rivers All-Conference

* Sixth at Gary Coates Invitational

* eighth at Seneca Regional

* 32nd Oregon Sectional