The Hidden Race

This is Ellery Lincoln. She just qualified for the 2026 U20 World Team and earlier this season ran a 4:27 mile at the Festival of Miles. And she’s a junior in high school from app. Named Lincoln HS in Portland Oregon. However, her success doesn’t tell the whole story as she’s had to overcome multiple lengthy illnesses to get there. This was one of my favorite episodes to record as we really dove i...

Today, we’ll look at the story of Whitefish Bay HS incoming sophomore Karstin McCabe. We’ll go through her year, going from early success, her injury and how she recovered from that to crush the rest of her freshman cross country and track season. Enjoy!

If you want to run fast this postseason, this episode is for you!

Today, we’ll look at the story of Trabuco Hills senior and San Diego State University commit Skylar Watts. Both a silly and very meaningful episode, we dive briefly into Skylar’s Nike Cross Nationals experience, then look at life and experiences as a running content creator, and her mindset on both content creation and on running. There’s a pretty embarrassing segment where I try to put myself in...

I’m Nate and this is Unger the Radar: where we reveal off-camera observations of authentic athletes. Today, we’ll look at the story of Brandon Valley senior and Iowa State commit Mikah Peters. Mikah’s grown up loving Batman & other superheroes, so this episode is a retelling of our story of his heroic superhero arc journey from 7th grade till now, May of his senior year, covered with all of Mi...

Today, we’ll look at the story of current Belen Jesuit junior Marcelo Mantecon. We’ll talk about lots of different things, beginning with his faith, service, family, upbringing with Belen Jesuit and through his postseason run this year at NXN and Brooks, and we’ll go through his quadruple national title at NIN as well as advice he has for runners to never limit themselves. Enjoy!

Hi, I’m Nate and this is Unger the Radar: where we reveal off-camera observations of authentic athletes. Today, we’ll look at the story of Mountain Vista senior and Arizona State University commit Brenna Jorde. There was lots of bouncing around in this fairly long episode but we talk about her junior year NXN championship run then dive into her trip in Slovakia, interspersed throughout we learn th...

Today, we’ll look at the story of, current Hamilton senior and Colorado State Commit Zarian Rodriguez. We’ll talk a lot about the camaraderie on his high school team then dive into the experiences he had at two premier XC meets, Arcadia and. Then, we dive into his experience running Brooks and the additional camaraderie he’s had on the national running community. Throughout we’ll dive into both so...

Today we'll look at the story of current Irvine High School senior Summer Wilson. We'll look at her track club upbringing with Equalizers and look at her relationships with younger athletes on the team as a role model. Then, we’ll look at her early career with Junipero Serra before diving into her own career at Irvine with Coach Hurst. We'll talk about that as well. Then we'll just go into her exp...

Today, we’ll look at the story of current Mercer Island junior Sophia Rodriguez. This was a smorgasbord of different topics, family, moving a lot, radio, but really focused on the personal takeaways of her time in the Nike Elite program and trail running in Spain and France. Enjoy!

Hi, I’m Nate and this is Unger the Radar: where we reveal off-camera observations of authentic athletes. Today, we’ll look at the story of HXN champion, Ruah Franzmann-Simmert. We’ll talk a lot about her journey to her championship run, as well as her faith, family, and how they both have supported her frequent travels and exploits to the national stage.

Today, we’ll look at the story of Shakopee senior and St. Thomas commit Kacie Claessens. The main thing is her faith and her people and how she used both to get through the crazy turn of events that happened in Chicago, all starting with a DQ and ending with a trip to Nike Indoor Nationals. We’ll also begin with how she found her place as a 7th grader on varsity at Shakopee and a runner on TopSelf...

Today, we’ll look at the story of West Dubuque senior and Oregon commit Quentin Nauman. In this first part of Quentin’s interview, we’ll go over the journey up to his junior year, including where he got started, quadrupling at state, his quest to break 4 minutes in the mile, and his journey to a national NON title. On the second part, we’ll look at his journey with Nike Elite and his general advic...

Today, we’ll look at the story of Bloomington South High School and UNC commit Ellie. For the first part of this episode, we’ll talk about Ellie and her soccer beginnings, then follow her journey for the state record in the 4x8. We talk about something I call Confidence without Evidence which is how she was able to run for a national championship title at the 800 at nike outdoor national despite t...

Today, we’ll look at the story of my former teammate, current Minnetonka senior and Stanford commit Sean Fries. We’ll talk a lot about Minnetonka as we both ran together. Also, we'll touch on his other sport, swimming. Then, we’ll dive into his high school running career so far, including his postseason run to run 14:22 and his quest for a national title at both NXN and Brooks. Enjoy!

Today, we’ll look at the story of current Wayzata freshman Ali. We’ll look at her cross country career so far, the transition from middle school to high school cross country, and her generational postseason run and her quest to go for a national title at NXN with a team of her and six seniors. This is a two part interview, and we’ll discuss the greater Wayzata community as well as her first high s...

Today, we’ll look at the story of Rochester John Marshall High School junior Abi Tri, and her cross country journey. She goes through her journey running the state meet for the first time as a 7th grader and how her struggles with performance anxiety impacts her running career. We’ll dive into how she uses her sports psychologist Ruth Brennan to help her as well as how both her family and team has...

Today, we’ll look at the story of current University of Minnesota freshman Laura McClary, and Case Western University freshman Halina Tompkins. However, the focus is on their experience on St. Paul Central’s high school cross country team; and how they supported each other. We’ll look into Laura’s and Halina’s leadership on the team, to how the team supported Laura when she was injured and vice-ve...

Today we’ll look at the story of Sophia Bablitch, an incoming sophomore at the University of Minnesota. From a town of 478 people, we’ll look at her humble beginnings in a big family and small team; she had more cousins than XC teammates! Then, we go from small town to the big city and even bigger career goals in the journalism field. Sophia was awesome to have on the pod as we had a lot of common...

Today we’ll look at the story of Maddie Gullickson, an incoming senior at the Wayzata High School. We dive into what drives her crazy finishing kicks in going for the state title or the 4x8 state record. We’ll look at how she has been able to be such an incredible leader of a team who has won 3 state cross country titles in a row, whether she was running or not. And then, we’ll look at what it was...

In this episode of the MOMENTUM Podcast, we’re joined by Minnesota Gophers women’s soccer player and Hopkins High School alum Avery Petty. As a freshman navigating her first collegiate season, we reflect on her lifelong journey through playing soccer in Minnesota; from playing for Hopkins High School as a captain to stepping onto the field for her first game as a Gopher at the University of Minnes...

We’re kicking off the MOMENTUM Podcast with Minnesota state cross country champion and UNC Chapel Hill commit Robert Mechura. The first episode dives into Robert’s journey from setting school records in elementary school to becoming one of Minnesota’s top distance runners.  We talk about the early days, summer camp stories, and the tight bond he shares with his Roseville teammates. Robert opens up...