Eagle Valley runner resets 1600 and 800-meter school records in final prep races at Colorado state track and field championships

Dylan and Tyler Blair have spent most of their careers reshuffling the Eagle Valley record board.

On the last day of the Colorado state track meet, Tyler Blair made the most of his final two prep races. With a 4×800 and 4×400-meter relay leg already in his legs from Thursday, the future Montana State University runner blasted a 1:52.99 to place seventh in the 4A boys 800-meter run on Friday and followed that up with a 4:14.39 in Saturday’s 1600.

“It’s pretty amazing, I won’t lie,” he said. “Just had two days of absolutely great racing.”

But while the twins’ back-and-forth mile record exchange makes for an easy lede, the real story behind Tyler Blair’s build-up to the 2026 CHSAA state track and field meet transcends times.

“He just bounces back so well from adversity,” coach Charlie Janssen said. “(He has) just a really resilient mindset and it’s taken him so far.”

Support Local Journalism

Donate

“It was pretty sentimental for me this year to run the 800 because I missed it last year,” Blair added.

A stress fracture prior to the 2025 state meet kept Blair off the start list. His final cross-country race didn’t go according to plan either, and he entered an uncertain winter with pain in the same area on his foot. Blair cross-trained upwards of three hours a day, nordic skied for the Devils all winter and came into spring fit. But he struggled at first to find his speed.

The tall, graceful runner opened the year with a 4:32.61 at the Mickey Dunn Invitational, finishing eight seconds off Central Grand Junction winner Brendyn Watts. A week later, he was second again — this time to his brother — in 4:25.52 at the home meet. On April 17, he snatched the school record away from Dylan in 4:20.81; he lowered it to 4:17.78 at the league meet two weeks later.

“It was pretty amazing. I’ve never really seen any cuts like that,” Janssen commented. “He struggled to find his legs for awhile, but once it clicked, he came into form at just the right time.”

At St. Vrain last week, Blair uncorked a three-second personal best — nearly 10 seconds quicker than his altitude PB at the start of the season. Still, he was unsure if he’d get the chance to race the event at Jeffco Stadium.

“That was insane in itself,” Blair noted. “It kind of shows how stacked 4A has been this year.”

Longtime Summit rival Jay McDonald entered as the top-seed with a 4:06.61. The junior ran a 1:51 in the 4×800 and won the open 800 in 1:48.64, missing the all-time state record by 14 hundredths. He tracked Quinn Sullivan through the opening quarter in 53.01 and passed the Niwot star down the homestretch. Blair clicked off metronomic splits of 56.48 and 56.51 to slice more than a second off his own record. Before the 1600, McDonald and Blair shared pre-race pleasantries as the temps continued to rise in Lakewood.

“He was talking about how everyone was tired and that really just gave me more confidence because I wasn’t feeling great myself,” said Blair, who’d spent most of the afternoon wearing Janssen’s ice vest to keep his body heat low.

Carson Smith led the stacked field through the opening lap in 62 seconds and hit halfway in 2:07.64. Defending champion Rocco Culpepper, the son of Olympian Alan Culpepper, sat in second while McDonald and Blair hung out in the middle of the field.

“I was kind of boxed, which I was totally fine with,” Blair said. “Second lap, It was honestly way quicker than I thought. I thought we were going sluggish pace honestly.”

McDonald moved up on the backstretch of the third lap and cross-country state champion Oliver Horton — who came into the meet boasting 4:09 and 8:38 1600/3200 chops — went with. No one had burned any matches by the final lap, so when McDonald went to the lead right before the bell, everyone started throwing haymakers.

With 200 to go, Culpepper accelerated fiercely to the front. McDonald didn’t give up the fight, however, and nearly caught the Niwot senior — who tied up in his final strides and crashed over the finish line, his 55.92-second final lap preserving the victory. Meanwhile, Blair blasted a 1:01.35 to finish seven spots higher than his No. 18 seed.

“Last 200, usually I have some sort of kick, but I was just trying to give it my all,” Blair said. “Last race of senior year – it was pretty crazy and I was pretty excited with the PR.”

Blair leaves as the program record holder in three events (800, 1600, 4×800-meter relay) and came half a second from a fourth (4×400) earlier this month. Dylan has the 3200-meter and cross-country records and older sisters Joslin and Samantha own the women’s column, too. In all likelihood, if a young kid peers up at the record board in the gymnasium 20 years from now, ‘Blair’ will probably still be next to at least a couple of those events. When asked what he’d say to that future Devil, Tyler Blair said he’d offer a word of encouragement.

“I would say that, all the hard work you put in when no one is watching makes the biggest difference,” he added. “And setbacks will happen, but ultimately those setbacks lead to those great PRs and the fun times.”

Janssen said Blair, like many high-level distance runners, holds himself to a high standard. But somehow, he doesn’t get bogged down by disappointments.

“He’s hard on himself, too, but he gets over it, moves on — (takes it) as a learning experience,” Janssen said.

“He has a pretty unlimited reservoir of patience, he knows what he’s capable of and when the time is right, he executes really well,” the coach continued. “And he knows that racing and training — like life — it’s imperfect. And he just really takes everything in stride. And I think that’s a huge factor to his success over the years.”

Blair plans to race his signature events at Montana State University next year and give steeplechase a shot as well. This summer, he might hop in the National Trail Championships in Salida as Eagle Valley goes for a fourth-straight team title — since graduating seniors are eligible. In 2027, he’d love to represent Team USA at the U20 World Mountain and Trail Championships as long as it doesn’t conflict with college cross-country. Whatever potential highs and lows are out there, Blair seems pretty well equipped for the trail ahead.

“I think it really helps build a person when they face a major setback and they can come back and be so much better,” he stated. “I think even in the stress fracture, I really learned how to become as hard working as I possibly could. … It was all worth it in the end for sure.”