Jack Anstrom, a senior and standout long distance runner at Seaforth, doesn’t mean to sound cocky or full of himself when he’s just being honest.
The honest truth is that he’s now the fifth boys’ cross-country runner in the history of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association to win three individual state championships. Anstrom finished first for the third straight time in the 2A state championship meet at the Ivey Redmon Sports Complex in Kernersville Saturday with a time of 15 minutes, 52.89 seconds, which is nearly a minute slower than his personal-best.
“I think it’s really cool,” Anstrom said about his latest state title. “I’ve never really gone too hard in these state championships. I know it sounds brash, but, I mean, I think it’s just a testament to the work I do and a testament to how far I’ve come since freshman year.”
The win marked Anstrom’s sixth career state title across cross country and indoor and outdoor track. When asked if he’s gotten used to winning state championships, Anstrom once again gave a fully transparent answer.
“Again, I don’t want to sound brash, but I really wish I was in 4A,” Anstrom said. “Especially last year in track when 2A and 4A were all there lining it up, it’s like ‘Oh, these guys I raced in the regular season. These guys I’ve all beaten in the regular season.’”
In other words, Anstrom wants to be challenged.
Anstrom referred back to the 2024 NCHSAA outdoor track state championships when he and his future NC State teammate Noah Valyo (formerly at Athens Drive) both won the 1600 and 3200-meter races for 2A and 4A, respectively.
Valyo ran faster times than Anstrom in both events, but the two got to compete against each other a week later in the RunningLane Track Championships in Alabama. Valyo edged Anstrom by just under one second in the one mile final, but Anstrom got the best of Valyo in the 3200-meter final by nearly three seconds.
“It was not, like, sad, but it’s just kind of like a cool idea that if I was in 4A and going into a state championship, we’d run some really fast things,” Anstrom said.
Anstrom’s perspective after his latest state title is in a way a full-circle mindset, considering his running career started as a fresh challenge for himself.
Before high school, Anstrom played soccer and didn’t have any experience in competitive running. Coming into his freshman year at Seaforth, Anstrom was “all over the place” on deciding what sport he wanted to participate in. Soccer, junior varsity basketball and even swimming came to mind, but after getting a taste of cross-country workouts, Anstrom found his niche.
“There’s just something about it that gets you,” Anstrom said. “I think I just showed up to one too many workouts, and I was like this is what I’m going to do for the next four years. It’s hard to explain. It was like competing at its finest. It’s me versus you or team versus team. It’s like you go out, and it’s how hard can you go? How fast can you go? It’s going out and proving yourself on an island.”
Anstrom proved himself quickly when he finished as the 2A cross country state runner up as a freshman, and the realization he found thereafter set off one of the state’s most memorable running careers.
“It definitely wasn’t a disappointment,” Anstrom said. “I was really excited about it. But, coming into it, and maybe it added a little pressure, I was just thinking like, ‘Hey, I’m really young. All the people I’m racing here are seniors.’ But I realized there’s one guy who beat me that year, and he is long gone. He’s graduated, so that just kind of started off a pretty good streak of wins.”
As Anstrom finishes his high school cross country career as the king of the 2A classification, his perspective on Saturday’s victory is even more interesting, considering it comes a year before the NCHSAA’s new eight-classification model.
Seaforth will likely compete in a much higher classification next year based on its student population.
Anstrom actually stared kindergarten at an early age, thus, it was possible that he could have been in the class of 2026 and gotten to defend his titles against faster runners. However, the timing of everything left him with what is and not what could’ve been.
Who knows if the same things could be said about Anstrom if he was in a higher classification? Who knows if he’d have more, less or the same titles to his name?
The fact that he wonders tells another fact about him, though — he’s as true as a competitor that one can be.
