The GNAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 11-12 was considered by CWU Track and Field head coach Kevin Adkisson to be a good chance to “get your bragging rights” as a team.

CWU Track and Cross Country distance runner Josh Boston went into the event and came out with those bragging rights in an unforgettable individual performance. Boston entered the 10k race ranked eighth in the GNAC. With a time of 32:08.40, he ended the race victorious and walked away with his first ever 10k win at the GNAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Boston comes from Ridgecrest, California, a small town about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. All Boston wanted out of high school was some scholarships, so he ended up as a Wildcat.

“It was definitely a shock at first,” Boston said. “I’m from a town in the middle of nowhere… it was a big change.”

Boston was redshirted his freshman year. This allowed him to continue to work towards getting better for a season before coming back and officially being part of the team.

“Every season after that he’s made great progress,” Adkisson said. “He’s always been one of our dependable top distance guys. This year he definitely took another big step forward in terms of being a contributor on the Track side.”

Boston isn’t a loud and extroverted leader according to Adkisson, but he is still a leader through positivity and reliability. Boston will be coming back for Fall 2018 to end his time here at CWU with one final Cross Country season.

“The legacy he will leave behind is showing the rest of the guys who are super similar in talent that ‘this is something we can all be shooting for in the next couple years,’” Adkisson said. “We’ve got a couple great people who will be seniors in the fall with Josh, and then some really promising freshmen, we want those guys to be able to take that and continue to build their confidence as well.”

Boston has one final goal before moving on in life to bigger things. Rather than an individual goal, Boston wants to help get the CWU Cross Country team to the National Championships.

“We’re looking pretty strong… With the marks we’ve been hitting this year and the great freshman class we’ve got coming in that’s definitely the goal,” Boston said.

Fellow Cross Country runner and teammate Ron Leaf has been friends with Boston ever since their freshman year when Adkisson paired them up for part of training camp. Leaf said that Boston has always had a “team-first attitude” when it comes to his mentality of the sports.

Leaf watched Boston run his first-place 10k at the GNAC Outdoor Championships earlier this month and recalled how he was feeling when the race was nearing the end.

“You get 25 laps to watch it develop. He led over half of it, and I watched people slowly start to fall off the pack,” Leaf said. “I knew he had it won. If you’re by him with the last couple laps to go he’s gonna drop you. I was just jumping for joy and skipping around, it was pretty fun to cheer and watch.”

Boston’s father is a big inspiration for him. Boston said his dad helped him in his decision to go to CWU for Track and Cross Country. Boston’s family still live in California, but they take time to fly up to Washington a couple times a year to watch Boston race.

When Boston looks back on his time at CWU, he will most remember winning the 10k at the GNAC Outdoor Championships, as it was in his mind, his “biggest race ever.”

“Usually I’m dead after a race, but just because I had so much adrenaline and happiness after it, I felt great,” Boston said. “It was a great feeling.”