Carson Steckelberg had some plantar fasciitis develop midway through his freshman season running at the University of Montana in 2023.

He was relegated to a stationary bike for much of his training, trying to mitigate the pain. By the end of the season, at the Big Sky Cross Country Championships in Missoula, he placed 55th. It was not the debut at a conference meet that he had hoped for.

“My confidence wasn’t there,” Steckelberg reflected on Thursday. “My fitness didn’t seem to be there.”

He rebounded as a sophomore, rising to 17th in the conference last season in Pocatello, Idaho.

Noting that no cross country course is the same, and that he rarely gets to race against Big Sky opponents until the conference meet, Steckelberg said it’s difficult to compare his times against others in th

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