As early as five years old, Chloe Piegat was involved in the sport of track. In “carrot” track, her fondest memory was that of racing down a giant hill to reach her best friend, then face planting unashamedly. Fast forward eleven years, and she is well-established as one of the most gifted sprinters Dakota Ridge has ever had. Next school year, she’ll be opening a new chapter in Connecticut, but in the meantime, she is determined to continue engraving her name on the top of Dakota’s sprints leaderboard, to set more records that won’t soon be broken.

Currently a sophomore, Piegat ran the best female two hundred meter dash time of all-time at Dakota Ridge. Finishing with a time of 26.02 seconds on April 23rd, her newest personal record is nothing short of unprecedented. “Setting the record doesn’t make me feel very different, but it’s sitting in the back of my mind telling me to beat it again,” she says with a big smile, “so I’m going to go break it again.”

The time to beat for herself and everyone else is now 26.02 seconds, with Piegat’s record-setting PR beating the previous record by 0.45 seconds. Although the track season is winding down, the true competition is ramping up as league and state meets gleam on the horizon. For top-notch runners, the goals they have worked towards all year are ready for the taking, that is, only if they are ready to lay it all on the line.

While the adrenaline rush before a race is quite enough to get anyone’s heart pumping, Piegat prefers to “get in the zone,” focusing all her energy on the race ahead. Her mother, a huge source of inspiration in her life, always gives her a motivational pep-talk before she steps foot on the track. She allows the race to engrain itself in her mind while she aspires to the heights of modern running greats, and coupled with her mother’s words, she takes off like a missile at the bang of the gun.

Success in track hinges on much more than athletic prowess, however. As she is enrolled in various honors courses, Piegat’s contrasting plate of school work is never quite empty. “Balancing my schoolwork and training is always a big challenge for me, saying how I’m a huge procrastinator,” she laughs, “some days my grades are crying, some days I’m missing track because I have to get my grades up, but I’m getting better at it.” Still active beyond track and school, Piegat is an avid artist as well as an enthusiastic singer, with a special place in her heart for cartoons.

Having gone through elementary school, middle school, and high school in the Dakota Ridge area, her mark upon the Dakota Ridge community and its mark upon her are indelible. Her upcoming move to Connecticut is a drastic shift in her life, but as usual, she will take it in stride.

“I’m definitely going to miss the community with track and cross country, just running in general. It brings a lot of people together, I’d say, and it makes school a lot more fun,” she says.

Piegat’s new ambitions extend far beyond her new record: “From here on I just want to keep beating my times. I want to leave it all on the track, and leave my mark not only on Dakota, but hopefully on Colorado in the state meet.” They also extend to her new home, where she hopes to continue her stellar high school running career, pursuing her dream of going into college as a runner and one day impacting the worldwide running community.

“It’s hard as a sophomore saying that I’ve left a legacy at Dakota, saying that I haven’t had that much time here. I’m really trying to, but I think, I think I’ll be able to by the end of sophomore year. Normally you have four years, but two years is just going to have to cut it for me.”

If there’s one thing Piegat could have someone learn from her experience growing up in Dakota Ridge, it’s that high school girls need to seize their day to the fullest: “There’s a lot of people on our track team, but there’s not a lot of girls, and it’s because a lot of them are super self-conscious. They’re embarrassed to do anything athletic because of how others could view them, but I would just say, ‘full send.’ You only go through high school once and you can’t let self-consciousness scare you away from doing things. You have to go do it.”

While Piegat gears up to finish her final season as an Eagle on a high note, her eyes are always on the next step. “I’m definitely going to take over Connecticut,” she says with a playful smile, which communicates a love for running and a determination fit for the top of the leaderboards.