It was a weekend to recollect for Jadyn Keeler of Barrie, Ont., in northern California. Keeler smashed the Canadian U23 document within the ladies’s 10,000m on Friday on the Stanford Invite in Palo Alto, Calif., in her first time racing the gap.
Keeler’s record-breaking time of 32:06.70 beat the earlier document by 26 seconds, inserting her eighth on the Canadian all-time listing and solely 53 seconds behind the nationwide document of 31:13.94, held by two-time Canadian Olympian Andrea Seccafien.
“It was an unimaginable feeling,” Keeler stated about her achievement. “I used to be unsure what to anticipate, because it was my first time racing the ten,000m distance.”
Twenty-five laps of a 400m monitor can sound overwhelming, however Keeler says she approached it by telling herself to remain relaxed and turning her thoughts off. “We went by way of 5,000m in 16:10, and I simply felt nice,” she stated. She proceeded to run 16:06 over the ultimate 12.5 laps, changing into the primary Canadian lady since 2022 to run below 32 minutes and 10 seconds.
The 21-year-old third-year pupil on the College of North Dakota shared that she’s been desirous to deal with the ten,000m since arriving in Grand Forks in 2022. “The longer the race—the higher I carry out,” Keeler stated with fun. “It’s all the time been the case.”
Canadian U23 document within the ladies’s 10,000m 🚨
Jadyn Keeler of @UNDtrackfieldXC clocked 32:06.70 on the Stanford Invite to smash the earlier document by 26 seconds.
This places Keeler eighth on the 🇨🇦 all-time listing and is the quickest 🇨🇦 ladies’s 10,000m time since 2022.
Spectacular 👊 pic.twitter.com/wtRqC1PWLF
— Marley Dickinson (@marleydickinson) April 5, 2025
Keeler’s operating journey began in Barrie, Ont., the place she grew up as a determine skater. Her expertise for distance operating was found when she was 12. “I used to be simply operating for enjoyable, and my elementary college XC coach pointed me towards a neighborhood monitor membership,” she recalled. By highschool, she had shifted her focus utterly to operating, leaving determine skating behind.
Like many athletes, Keeler confronted challenges in the course of the pandemic. She missed two seasons of highschool monitor and area in 2020 and 2021 as a result of COVID and needed to depend on Zoom to make her college and athletic selections. “I bear in mind not having the ability to go to universities, so I needed to resolve on the place I used to be going to check and run monitor for the following 4 to 5 years by way of Zoom,” Keeler stated.
Her path ultimately led to the College of North Dakota, the place she trains below coach Tom Scott. Keeler praises UND for its individualized programming, supportive employees and top-tier amenities, together with a brand new 300m indoor monitor. A double main in molecular biology and geography, she balances teachers with monitor and area and XC.
Canadian ladies haven’t competed within the 10,000m occasion on the final three main championships (Paris, Budapest, Eugene), however Keeler may change that trajectory if she continues to progress. Nonetheless, she additionally envisions transitioning to the marathon sooner or later. “The purpose proper now could be to proceed creating my velocity and to decrease my occasions within the 10,000m,” she stated. “Competing for Canada in the future can be a dream come true.”
For now, her focus is on reaching her NCAA objectives, which embrace qualifying for the 2025 NCAA Observe and Discipline Championships in Eugene, Ore., in June, and excelling within the ladies’s 3,000m steeplechase, 5,000m, and 10,000m on the Summit League Convention Championships in Could.
“Seeing what Ceili McCabe and Savannah Sutherland have achieved—it’s tremendous inspiring to a whole lot of Canadian feminine athletes,” stated Keeler. “They’ve paved the way in which for lots of us, and if they will do it, why can’t I?”