About a month ago he was in the 41-second range.
Then at the start of April he'd trimmed that down by about four-tenths of a second.
Last weekend, Bayfield junior Carl Heide's improvement in the 300-meter hurdles was on display again as he first laid down a scorching 39.90 in the Aztec Invitational's preliminaries, then burned out in the final with a rewritten BHS-best 39.54.
By comparison, 5A Kirtland Central's Terrin Willie took second in 40.16 and 5A Farmington's Justin Williams finished third in 41.63.
In helping the Wolverine boys place fourth with 58 team points, Heide's progression in the 110m hurdles also paid off. He established a new school record with a winning 15.01 - finally beating Tyler Young's 15.50 from 1997, with an effort incredibly 0.71 faster than his field-pacing run in the prelims.
FHS captured the meet title with 92 points, the hosting 5A Tigers (79) finished second and KCHS (75) was a close third out of 13 teams registering at least one point.
No slouch in the hurdles himself, Bayfield junior Dax Snooks was third across the finish line in the 110m version with his 16.12, and scored more in the high jump with his second-place 5'10" leap.
Always a threat to win in the short sprints, senior Brian Mashak's 11.28 in the 100-meter dash was good enough for third. Junior Colton Fine took fourth in the pole vault (11'0") and Hunter Killough was the third Wolverine cracking the top-five in the discus with his fifth-place 128'5".
The other two? Is this even a question anymore?
Senior Sam Westbrook won with a 141'5", with junior Ryan Phelps taking second at 140'6" and 6A Piedra Vista teammates Talon Ball (132'5") and Matthew Compton (129'11") third and fourth.
Westbrook also won the shot put with a 48'9" best, with Phelps second at 47'9". Sophomore David Hawkins' 42'4" was good for seventh, missing out on a team point by nine inches.
The 4x100 relay (Wyatt Killinen, Gus Roberts, Jaden Vitagliano, Dylan Hilliker) scored one point with a sixth-place 46.97, and the 4x200 (Briant Cuellar, Jesse Westbrook, Josh Westbrook, Ethan Tate) did likewise in 1:39.31.
Up next for BHS will be Saturday's High Altitude Challenge in Alamosa, while Ignacio will attend the 59th Annual Bloomfield Invitational. Both meets will begin at 9:00 a.m.
The IHS boys finished 13th in Aztec, logging one point via Natoni Cundiff's sixth-place 125'11" discus throw. Freshman Elco Garcia, Jr., earned a non-scoring top-10 result in the 3,200-meter run with a ninth-place 10:50.12, and took 13th in the 1,600 (4:59.65).
2017 AZTEC INVITE BOYS' TEAM STANDINGS: 1.Farmington 92, 2.Aztec 79, 3.Kirtland Central 75, 4.BAYFIELD 58, 5.Farmington Piedra Vista 43, 6.Bloomfield 36, 7.Durango 35, 8.Gallup Miyamura 28, 9.Pagosa Springs 18, 10.Farmington Navajo Prep 9, 11.Dolores 4, 12.Mancos 3, 13.IGNACIO 1.
