SANTEE -- Kenan Christon used to think of himself as a track athlete. Then the 5-foot-10, 185-pounder from Madison High donned football gear, rushing for 1,233 yards and 16 touchdowns last fall.
"I still like football better," said the Warhawks junior. "It's the team thing; working together to achieve something."
He still runs a little. Not slowly, either.
At the 15th Elmer Runge Invitational Saturday at West Hills High, Christon set meet records in the 100 by running 10.69 and the 200 at 21.42. For good measure led off the 4x400 relay team with a 49.6 split.
His performances won out over a three-win day by Coronado's Alysah Hickey on a day that started with chilling rain before finally warming up a little.
Christon was plenty hot.
Most impressive for the Warhawk was a scorching 200 where he exploded out of the blocks, ran a hard curve and then charged down the final straightaway to easily improve on the 21.85 he clocked a year ago.
"That start was really good and I knew I had to get a good start to run fast," said Christon while awaiting his relay leg. "I'm sure it was wind-aided, but it still felt awful good. I set two meet records today and now I want to lower them next year."
In the 200, he eclipsed the previous meet record of 21.64 set in 2009 by Mira Mesa's Maurice Strickland. He won by more than a full second.
That might have been because he was totally frustrated despite the fast time earlier in the 100.
"When I pushed off on the blocks, they slipped a notch and when I looked up, I was in fifth place," said Christon, who was selected the boys track Athlete of the Meet. "Then when I started catching up I kicked myself. Never done that before."
He certainly didn't panic, instead charging one last time to win easily by .21 seconds.
About football.
"I used to like track most but football is growing on me," he said.
The 100-meter dash is his favorite event but he runs a 400 once a year and looked very comfortable cracking 50 for the first time.
Since there was no official wind gauge, all of the performances, including Christon's two sprints, were wind-aided.
Hickey was also probably aided in winning the 100, long jump in 12.04 and high jump at 5-feet. Another 11th grader, she was not particularly pleased despite grabbing girls track Athlete of the Meet.
"Today was not my day," said Hickey, the San Diego Section 100-meter dash champion and 5-7 high jumper a year ago.
"It was pouring rain when I high jumped and I'm not really happy with my 17-11 in the long jump after going 18-8 in a dual meet on Thursday.," she said.
In the first outdoor meet of the year at Mt. Carmel three weeks ago, she popped a slightly wind-aided (2.2 mps) 19-5 ¼, so one can see why she wasn't celebrating that meet record. Her winning time in the 100 of 12.04 set the meet record by two-tenths but she was looking for a sub-12.
"My high jump was terrible and I think I let it affect me in my other events," said Hickey. "I can't do that but when I have too high of expectations, I put pressure on myself. I'm looking for consistency in all of my events."
The rain and chilling wind was no friend to most of the runners from the 38 schools who participated in the meet.
Other quality marks, though, included a section-leading 12-foot girls pole vault by Poway's Katerina Adamiec and a 37-1 ½ triple jump meet record by Gompers junior Jasmine Scott.