Everything you need to know about Gracie Troester is in this photo. That’s Troester after one lap of the two-lap 800m run — just two hours after she had a set personal best in the 1600m. After the first lap in the 800m, she was dead last out of 16 runners.
Over the next lap, she passed seven runners to finish ninth, just short of winning a third state medal. She’d have been the first runner to ever accomplish that for Republic. Her split on that final lap was better than 11 other runners, despite the fact that she had run 13 laps over the previous 21 hours (going back to her medal-winning performance in the 3200 Friday evening). She ran those first two races at her fastest pace ever — over the previous 21 hours. And still she passed seven runners in her final lap of the meet. It was maybe the best overlooked performance of the entire weekend.