When Fall Arrives in Running Shoes
On an unusually hot Inland Empire day, cross-country season returned to the San Jacinto Valley with dust, determination, hard racing and the familiar rhythms of fall.
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by Christopher Rael September 23, 2026
People mark the changing of the seasons in different ways. Some people notice the first cool morning. Others wait for the leaves to turn, the first pumpkin to appear on a porch, or the moment the sun starts disappearing a little earlier each evening.
I know the seasons have changed when cross-country starts.
That was my marker today as I headed out to the regional cross-country championships here in the San Jacinto Valley. There was just one problem with my theory about autumn.
It was hot. Really hot.
This is, after all, the Inland Empire, where fall sometimes arrives on the calendar long before it arrives in the weather. The runners faced an unusually hot day, along with wind, dust and a 5K course that looked deceptively forgiving.
Before the race, there was that familiar cross-country intensity. Athletes warming up. Coaches giving instructions. Runners stretching or jogging quietly by themselves. Teammates clustered together, talking one moment and then, as race time approached, becoming increasingly serious.
There is a transformation that happens right before a race. The joking stops. Faces change. Everyone knows what is coming. And then the gun goes off.
Cross-country may be one of the purest sports there is. There are no timeouts, no substitutions and very few places to hide. Once the race begins, it is simply the runner, the course, the weather and everyone else trying to get to the finish line first.
In the boys varsity race, Hemet senior Luke Teague did exactly that, and he did it emphatically.
Cross-country races often produce a small group of front-runners battling one another near the lead. Not this one. Luke separated himself from the field and came home with a convincing victory.
Afterward, though, there was very little swagger. Mostly, there was the matter-of-fact voice of a runner who has spent months doing the work required to make a performance like that possible.
Luke said his training has been “really consistent,” averaging about 54 miles a week once he reached his peak mileage. Once he got there, he said, the key was simply consistency.
That word comes up often in distance running: consistency.
There is nothing particularly glamorous about 54-mile weeks. Most of those miles are run far away from cheering spectators and finish-line announcements. They are accumulated day after day, long before anyone sees the result.
Luke has also had to manage the small problems nearly every serious runner encounters. After a previous race, he felt a slight problem in his shin. He responded by adding weight training, and the issue has not returned.
Then there is the way he found the sport in the first place. His brother encouraged him to try running when he got to high school, partly because it would be a good way to meet people.
It turned into considerably more than that.
“It kind of turned into a sport I actually wanted to compete in and go to college for,” Luke told me.
I asked him what it feels like now that he has discovered he is pretty good at it. His answer was wonderfully understated.
“Kind of shocked,” he said, “but very, very happy.”
That might have been my favorite answer of the interview, because there is something rather nice about watching a young person discover an ability almost in real time.
You start doing something because your brother suggests giving it a try. Then you keep showing up. You train. You get better. And one day you are standing at the finish of a championship race after beating the field.
Luke described today's course as extremely flat—he estimated only about 15 feet of elevation—but said that doesn't necessarily make it easy.
“The reason why this course is so hard is just the wind and then the heat,” he said. Add the dust, and a flat course suddenly becomes something else entirely.
“It just kind of takes a lot out of you.”
That was evident throughout the afternoon.
Luke also talked about the team around him. He believes this year's Hemet group may be the strongest collection of boys the program has had in years.
His primary training partner is Chris Phillips.
“He's a great guy,” Luke said, describing him as supportive and a strong runner. “It's just great to have him around.”
That may explain something important about cross-country. It is one of the most individual sports imaginable—the clock ultimately belongs to you—but almost nobody becomes very good at it entirely alone.
Someone runs those miles beside you. Someone pushes the pace. Someone is there on the bad workout. Someone understands what 54 miles in a week actually feels like.
For Luke, this is also his senior season, meaning these races carry an additional weight.
He has already experienced some of the major Southern California cross-country races. He raced Woodbridge this season despite coming off an illness and said he was pleased with the result considering the circumstances.
Ahead lies another race he clearly has circled: Mt. SAC.
Ask almost any Southern California distance runner about Mt. SAC and the reaction changes. The course has history. Hills. Tradition. Generations of runners have measured themselves there.
Luke smiled when I asked if he was looking forward to it.
“I very much do,” he said. “I'm ready to hit that course and hit it hard.”
Last season he reached the CIF preliminary round. This year there are more races ahead, with Mount Carmel next on his schedule and Mt. SAC waiting beyond that.
How far this senior season takes him remains to be seen. But today belonged to him.
At the finish line Luke did something I liked more than the victory itself.
He had won the race convincingly and could have walked away from the finish chute, found his teammates, collected congratulations and enjoyed the moment. Instead, he stayed.
The next runner came across the line, and Luke congratulated him. Then another came in, and Luke congratulated him too. He remained there as six or seven of the runners who had been chasing him around that 5K course finished, greeting each one as they came through.
He seemed genuinely happy for them.
Maybe that is the thing about cross-country that is difficult to understand until you've spent some time around it. Yes, everyone is racing against everyone else, and yes, they want to win. But they also know exactly what those other runners just went through.
They know about the miles nobody saw, the hard workouts, the sore legs, the small injuries and the days when running didn't feel particularly good. And on a day like today, they certainly knew about the heat, the wind and the dust.
For those few minutes at the finish line, the race was over. There were simply runners welcoming other runners home.
People mark the changing of the seasons in different ways.
For me, cross-country season has always been one of them.
Today, standing at a finish line in the heat of the Inland Empire, watching the winner wait to congratulate the runners who finished behind him, I was reminded why.
The Raincross Cross Country Conference Meet was held on September 23, 2026.
Christopher Rael is a writer, educator and an old cross-country man himself, having raced Mt. SAC and lived to tell the tale—a fact that gives him just enough authority to say that when a runner tells you a course is hard, you should probably believe him.
