On February 1, Warrenton alum Zack Bristol found himself in his first year of college track with no coaches, no teammates, no meets scheduled and no place to practice. 

Three months later, Bristol traveled to Utica, New York and placed third in the 400-meter and second in the 4x100 relay at the NJCAA National Championships. 

Bristol attends St. Charles Community College and majors in business. 

“I didn’t even expect to have a season because we didn’t have a coach two weeks out and I didn’t know very many people who would want to do it,” Bristol said. 

The coach Bristol had in the Fall was gone by the spring season leaving the program without a coach until a couple weeks before the season started.

Head Coach David Almany took the job. Almany went around campus trying to recruit athletes to run track. By the end of May, Almany coached the team to an eighth-place finish. 

“It’s amazing how many good track kids there were already in the student body that just didn't think they would ever participate again, they were not done,” Almany said. 

Bristol ran track for the Warrenton Warriors throughout high school and went to state for the 400-meter. However, he stated he did not perform his best at state which motivated him not to make the same mistake at nationals. 

At nationals, Bristol ran a 49.98 400-meter, which was almost four seconds faster than what he was running in the beginning of the season. 

Almany built a program based on the idea that your last race will be your best one, which is exactly what Bristol did. 

“He made a lot of progress just at the end of the season and it was encouraging because as a track coach you always stress the end of the year,” Almany said. 

Bristol will be entering his sophomore year this fall with many goals in mind after what the team accomplished in such little time this past season. 

Almany has recruited more athletes, outside of the campus, for this upcoming season, which has motivated Bristol to train harder in the off-season. 

While they are his teammates, Bristol knows he will have to continue to work hard to achieve his goal of finishing first place in the 400-meter and 4x100 relay race. 

He is also fairly confident the team will win nationals next year. 

“[Coach Almany] has recruited some really fast people, so trying to beat my own team for a national championship is almost more worrisome than beating my actual competitors,” Bristol said. 

Through the struggles of finding a place to practice, ensuring the team would have a coach, finding more people to join and getting to nationals, Bristol noted that he did go through doubts.

“Track is like a love-hate relationship and you think about quitting all the time, but I just never had,” Bristol said. 

While he did have doubts, Bristol also added that all the ups and downs ended up being worth it. 

“I would go through it all again,” he said. “We did not have very many people, but they’re all good people and good athletes and it was a great team to be around.”