Arlington High's Ryan Oosting: A Run To Remember

ARLINGTON, MA — Ryan Oosting said he was hardly enthusiastic about the start of his running career at Arlington High School. Four years of records broken, milestones passed, friends made and championships earned one after the other, the recent graduate can readily admit that his mother, Saskia, was on to something pretty good when she signed him up for cross country at AHS his freshman year.

"I didn’t even think I wanted to be a runner," said this year’s Division 1 cross country, indoor 2-mile and outdoor 2-mile state champion. "Since my mom made me do it, automatically I didn’t want to do it. But then I found out I was pretty all right at it, so I stuck with it."

His passion for running did not develop overnight. But it slowly built through training, accomplishment and the connections he made on and around the track. He felt his first big breakthrough was the Eastern Mass. Championships his freshman year when he ran a personal-record 9 minutes, 39 seconds in the 2-mile outdoors. That fueled him to work harder and harder to lower his times heading into that fall.

"Although it was clear to us that Ryan was going to be pretty fast relatively early in his freshman year, we weren't initially certain that his body would hold up, or if he was motivated to train at a higher level," Arlington High cross country coach Kevin Richardson said. "At that point in the year, he was running cross country after school and playing hockey at night. (AHS track head coach) Justin Bourassa and I finally convinced his mother that he should drop hockey and focus on running.

"Ryan subsequently beat our No. 5 varsity runner, and the rest was history."

The next spring, Oosting won the outdoor All-State 2-mile title, New England 1,600-meter championship and New Balance 5K race at Nationals. He went on to win both the indoor and outdoor mile and 2-mile All-State crowns as a junior. His outdoor 2-mile personal record is now 8:58, and he plans to take a shot at breaking the 4-minute mark in the mile at the Adrian Martinez Classic in Concord on Thursday.

"I didn’t realize how much all the training had helped me," he said. "When I got into those fast races, and I was able to run that fast, that kind of opened my eyes to it. I didn’t think I would be running for state championships. I didn’t have that mentality. I was running just for fun. But then my sophomore year came a stretch of four weeks when I just won everything."

He graduates as a nine-time state champion, seven-time All-American, 12-time division champion and holder of 15 school records.

"Before Ryan won the national championship his sophomore year we would regularly field 35 to 40 runners on the team," Richardson said. "Last year, our roster was 60. Ryan's impact on the culture of running at the high school, town and state has been immense. When Ryan started carving out a name for himself, he gave running a very much needed shot of life. We are very grateful for his contributions in that regard."

Oosting, who will attend Stanford University in the fall, said running became more than just his sport. It became the core of who he is as a person.

"My whole life — at least most of it — is based around running or some connection I have made through running," he said. "My past four years is all a result of what running has done for me."