The San Francisco State University Gators’ track and field season came to a bittersweet ending last Thursday as athletes crossed the finish line at the CCAA Championships at California State University, San Marcos. 

Senior Jesus Aguilar capped off the season with a record-breaking time of 30 minutes and 53.71 seconds in the 10,000-meter race at the CCAA Championships. The previous record was held by SFSU athletics hall of famer Mike Fanelli, who ran a time of 31 minutes and 6.2 seconds in 1981. 

Aguilar started the season off slower than anticipated, only beating his personal best times by a few seconds at the first few meets. His times got faster when he let go of rigid expectations — two weeks before CCAA, Aguilar ran a personal best in the 5,000-meter at the La Verne ULV Leopard Invitational.

“At some point by La Verne, I was just like, ‘You know I’m just gonna go race, I don’t even care much for time or anything like that,’” Aguilar said. “And then the results followed when I let go of what I wanted to happen in the end.” 

On the last lap of Aguilar’s record-breaking 10,000-meter race, fellow track athlete Caleb Bouwens shouted out that he needed a 75-second lap to make history.

“I was like ‘Oh my god, I don’t know if I could do that,’” Aguilar said. “But then I was like, ‘this is the last time you are going to run around a track as a college athlete.’ So I just went for it.” 

Finishing the race with a smile, Aguilar knew he had broken a record before he crossed the finish line. 

Most athletes celebrated a successful injury-free season full of personal records in the first half of the season, leaving room for improvement in the upcoming cross-country season in the fall.

Despite having her first injury-free season, senior Anika Pettinger felt burnt out by the time the championships rolled around. 

“I wanted to go and I just couldn’t, so realizing like ‘Okay, maybe I pushed a little too hard,’ or we talked about setting our workouts back a couple weeks for next year,” Pettinger said. 

Pettinger ran the 800-meter event for the first time during a college season with a personal record of 2 minutes and 18.03 seconds at La Verne. During the same weekend at the Bryan Clay Invitational, Pettinger scored another personal record of 4 minutes and 42.31 seconds in the 1500-meter event, which is on pace for a 5 minute and 2 second mile. 

Pettinger hopes to break a five-minute mile in the future by focusing on improving her endurance. 

“I think that my mileage needs to go up for sure next year,” Pettinger said. “I’ve been going about 40 to 45 miles a week, which I used to do 50 consistently. So for cross country, I want to bring that back up.” 

During both the track and cross country seasons, head coach Tom Lyons aims to provide consistency with workouts to prepare athletes both mentally and physically for races. 

“We do some workouts to make sure they can run in groups together so they get used to that,” Lyons said. “But the races are really where they work on their pacing.” 

Graduating senior Yuridia Corona-Duran hit multiple personal records in the 800-meter race back-to-back, shaving off an impressive eight seconds from her previous track season time. 

Corona-Duran noted that team camaraderie and new coaches brought steadiness to the team, allowing her to compete to the fullest. 

“We’ve had a lot of changes in coaching staff, but this season it felt the most stable,” Corona-Duran said. “I think that helped a lot too, compared to other seasons where it was a new coach basically every season. Right now, we found some stability, so we’re really excited about that.” 

After SFSU, Duran-Corona plans to continue running for fun and attend the University of California, San Francisco to study physical therapy. 

“It was all very bittersweet, just knowing that it was my third-to-last meet, my second to last meet. PRs were amazing though, compared to my last season,” Corona-Duran said. “Having a good cross country season just translated into track, so that was really cool. I basically accomplished everything I wanted to.” 

While graduating senior Tyler Sharp did not get a personal record in the championships, he started the season strong with a personal best in the 1500-meter race at the opening meet in early March. 

“It’s always great to get out there and compete with a bunch of talented guys, but it’s also bittersweet, you know, last track meet ever,” Sharp said. “I was hoping for a little bit bigger of a bang to go out, but sometimes you don’t have it on that day.”

Sharp ran a personal best in the 800-meter race with a noteworthy sub-two-minute time at the Mike Fanelli Track Classic in early April. 

Post college, Sharp plans on serving as a Catholic missionary and then studying either medicine or dietetics in graduate school. Sharp was happy to end his career on a high note with his first fully healthy season over the past four years. 

“Honestly, that’s been the best part,” Sharp said. “Just being out running with the guys and competing, where previous seasons I’ve been injured or other things have gone wrong where I’m not running with the guys, so this was just a really great way to end my career.”

Editors’ Note: This story was updated to have the correct number of meters in one of the races.