2024 NewsTribune Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year: Fieldcrest’s Caleb Krischel

In the last race of his high school career at Detweiller Park in Peoria, Fieldcrest senior Caleb Krischel ran the best race of his life.

Krischel ran the 3-mile course in 16:18.29 to place 118th in the IHSA Class 1A state meet.

“It was a big sigh of relief and accomplishment,” Krischel said. “All the pieces came together. I was just proud of myself seeing my work pay off.”

Krischel overcame a stress reaction in his knee as a junior that caused him to miss two months of running, rebuilt his base by running up to 65 miles a week in the summer, overcame the flu the day before the Heart of Illinois Conference Meet and pushed himself through hard workouts and tough races.

“I think one of my best assets is that I can endure pain,” Krischel said. “I’ll try to push through it. I’m not the most genetically gifted runner, so I have to work through it.

“I think it’s a mental thing. I just realized if I’m going to do it, I might as well be good at it and that’s what it takes.”

This fall, Krischel did what it took to put together his most successful season.

He placed second at Princeton’s Gary Coates Invitational, finished third in the Lowpoint-Washburn/Roanoke-Benson Invite, 10th at the HOIC Meet, 14th at the Dale Donner Invitational, 16th in the Morris Early Bird Invite and 17th at the El Paso-Gridley, Amboy Columbus Day and Elmwood invites.

In the postseason, Krischel ran a 17:25.6 to place fourth in the Seneca Regional and a 16:52.7 to finish 24th in the Alleman Sectional to earn his first state berth.

For all he accomplished this season, Krischel is the 2024 NewsTribune Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year.

“Generally, we’ve been assigned to the Elmwood Sectional, which is super tough. I’ve always said to the kids that we should be prepared so if luck came our way, we would be able to take advantage of it,” Fieldcrest coach Carol Bauer said. “Last year, he was the 13th individual (at sectionals) and 10 qualify. But he worked really hard to try to make it happen. When we got the assignment (to the Alleman Sectional), we felt this was the break we needed. Throughout the season, he had (personal) course races in almost all the big invitationals, so I knew he was ready to run well.

“He had a good, solid mindset at Seneca and ran a really smart race at the regional to put himself in position and I think that gave him confidence that he would be able to run with people at the sectional.”

Krischel’s journey to state and his successful senior season began with recovery from a knee injury that kept him away from running for two months and impacted his junior track season.

When track ended, he took 10 days off before starting training for cross country.

“I hit the miles hard, got a good aerobic base going into August and then started doing some workouts after that,” Krischel said.

During the summer, Krischel ran with a group of college runners, including former Fieldcrest standout and 2021 NewsTribune Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year Mason Stoeger.

“During the year, I don’t have a whole lot of people to train with, so I think just having somebody there just really helped push me, especially since they’re better than me.”

Training with Stoeger was a full circle moment for Krischel.

Krischel ran track in middle school and wasn’t planning to go out for cross country as a freshman until some runners on the team convinced him.

During that freshman season, Krischel saw Stoeger qualify for state.

“I’d say one of my biggest role models was Mason Stoeger,” Krischel said. “He was a senior when I was a freshman and seeing him succeed made me want to do it myself.”

So he put in the work.

“You just have to get out the door every day and it’ll just stack on top of itself,” Krischel said. “That’s the key, just being consistent.”

That consistent work helped Krischel develop from a freshman who ran a 23:14 in his first cross country race into a state qualifier who plans to run in college.

“He decided that wasn’t acceptable and he worked really hard,” Bauer said. “He showed steady progress. The thing I was most impressed with was, we do some killer hard workouts and he has never, ever backed away from them. He’s not afraid of the hard work and understands the value of rest. Being young, they always think they should do more, but he was pretty good with following the plan and completely bought into the system.”