Meet Preview: flrunners.com PR Festival On The Track

Boys 1600


The boys 1600 meter run has two star runners and among Florida's fastest returning milers this upcoming track season in Oak Hall School senior Caden Montini with a 4:13 PR and Sunlake senior Alex Pena with a 4:14 PR. Pena is actually headed to Gainesville, where Montini resides as as University of Florida signee. Meanwhile, Montini is one of the top unsigned senior distance runners still remaining as his older brother and state champion Austin currently runs for Yale University. 

Montini, the 1A state champion at 3200 meters as a sophomore in 2021, was denied a state title last spring in any event despite dropping his times including his 4:13.85 PR 1600 effort at the Florida Relays last April. 

Pena ran his 4:14.18 personal best for 1600 meters as a state runner-up in the 4A race last May in Gainesville, while he certainly will be vying to win his first state championship this spring. Pena finished 5th in the 4A state cross country race two weeks ago, while ran a 5K best of 15:17 earlier in the season at the FSU Pre-State Invite. 

Montini actually had a shot to win his second state title in the 1A state cross country race as all he had to do was finish second actually in the race since Braxton Legg of Cambridge Christian was ineligible from being declared the state champion officially since did not race at his regional meet, but Montini unfortunately finished third in the race behind Circle Christian's Jack Dejesus (15:54).

Both are known for great kicks and closing speed, so could be an exciting race and potential for early season sub 4:20 efforts before we even get to the 2023 track season.  

Behind our top two seeds in the boys 1600 meter is a pack of runners seeded at or have run under 4:30 including former Braddock High School and current Eastern Florida State College runner Gabriel Garcia, Viera senior Aidan Carroll, Bishop Verot senior Grayson Tubbs, and Buchholz junior Evan Fleming.

Garcia ran 4:27 last spring as a high school senior and is coming off competing last week at the 8K distance with a 77th place finish in the NJCAA D1 Cross Country Championships.

Carroll has a lot of upside potential coming off running his first cross country season as a high school senior and running a 5K best of 16:15 after primarily being an 800 meter runner on the track before with a 2:01 best. He could make a splash here in his first 1600 meter race ever on his home track. 

Tubbs just missed earning All-State honors in cross country with his 18th place finish in the 2A race two weekends ago and last spring focused primarily on the 800 meter run with a 1:57.90 personal best, but did drop a 4:27 full mile performance in the post-season at Golden South.

Fleming was a steady #3 runner all fall for the Buchholz boys cross country season not receiving much attention running behind the likes of two sub 16 minute runners in Emerson Miller and Mason Kawaja, but closed his season running well in the 16 minute range including a 16:24 best for his last 6 races. Similarly to Carroll and Tubbs, Fleming focused almost exclusively on the 800 meter run last year with a 1:56.40 personal best and will be making his 1600 meter debut on Saturday night.