The Texas Distance Festival has long been one of the premier early-season distance meets in the country, and the 2026 edition — presented by HOKA and hosted at Carroll High School in Southlake — lived up to every bit of that billing across two nights of racing. With events split across the two days — the 800m and 3200m on Friday, and the 1600m and 5K on Saturday — the new format gave runners a genuine shot at the double, and several of the state’s elite took full advantage.

The indoor national championship season wrapped up this weekend with Texas athletes making their presence felt across both the 2026 Nike Indoor Nationals in New York and the 2026 New Balance Nationals Indoor in Boston. From freshman breakthroughs to a historic relay performance and one remarkable kid who seemingly never sat down, it was a weekend worth cataloguing.

2026 Nike Indoor Nationals

Boys Freshman 1 Mile

San Antonio’s Cyril Girgis led Texas freshmen in the Boys Freshman Mile at Nike, finishing 14th in 4:36.88. The two Southlake entries — Aadi Ghanchi (28th, 4:41.75) and Cameron Perez (32nd, 4:43.80) — ran well, and Denton’s Logan Smith rounded out the Texas contingent in 68th at 4:56.37.

There’s a wall inside the Southlake Carroll Athletic complex that reads, simply: Protect the Tradition. For most athletes, that’s motivational wallpaper. For Caden Leonard, it’s a creed — one he has lived, raced, and bled for across four remarkable years as a Dragon.

Now a senior, Leonard stands at the threshold of something even bigger than state championships. He is eight hundredths of a second away from becoming the third Texas high schooler in history to break the four-minute mile. And if the arc of his career says anything, it’s that he tends to get what he comes for.