A young runner left making his 5K season goal to the last minute. But at Tuesday night’s final fun run of the season, the Last Gasp, Joe Parker finally went under 18 minutes.

He pushed through the pavement-full loop in 17 minutes, 54 seconds to lead a small pack of racers.

“It feels amazing,” he said at the finish of last night’s race. “I worked all summer to get to this point.”

Parker started the summer with an 18:55 5K, and shaved over a minute off his time.

He was aiming to run three-and-a-half minute kilometres.

“For the first 2K I felt really good, but after the second kilometre mark, I definitely started to feel hurt,” he said.

At the Yukon Cross-Country Championships two weekends ago, Parker cramped up in the second half of the race, forcing him to slow down the pace.

This time when he hit that second-half wall, he pushed through.

“I kept going and I didn’t feel too bad, so I decided to just go for it and it worked out, so I’m pretty happy,” he said.

Parker has caught the attention of fellow teenaged runner, Darby McIntyre, who has represented Canada as a Special Olympian at last summer’s Special Olympics World Summer Games in California. He won gold (5,000-metre) and bronze (1,500-metre) at that event.

Both young men are in a training group run by coach Don White.

“For a long time before this not many people were in front of me, so this was kind of the first time in a while that that kind of happened,” said McIntyre, “but Joe now that he was in front, gave me a reason to do my best.”

McIntyre was chasing Parker down, all along the Millennium Trail and back on Nisutlin Drive and Lewes Boulevard, but couldn’t quite catch up.

“It gave me a reason to go faster. It kept me going for sure. I ignored the pain and stuff and it kept me going,” he said.

“At the end man it felt gross like how you should feel. I left it out there.”

McIntyre crossed the line in 18:24, a little off his personal best for that distance. He is also aiming to break the 18-minute mark.

As McIntyre crossed the finish line in front of F.H. Collins Secondary School, he continued forward to where Parker was sitting in a pool of limbs on the grass. They gave each other a high-five.

With the wrap-up of the Tuesday night fun runs, the focus now shifts toward the B.C. Cross-Country Championships, which will be held in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island at the end of this month.

Both young runners have secured invitations from coach White to attend the competition.

Parker has never been to Nanaimo and doesn’t really know what it will be like.

“I’m kind of in the dark right now,” he said. “I’m excited but I don’t know what to expect.”

Both athletes will be continuing to train with White, running up to five times a week.

More teens will also be attending that race, but the group has yet to be set in stone. Part of the process was running at the Yukon Cross-Country Championships, a course that White has heard was more difficult than what the field will see in Nanaimo.

Veteran cross-country runner Lindsay Carson will also be making the trip to Vancouver Island for that race.

If all goes well for Yukoners, they may qualify for the national championships, which will be held in Kingston, Ont. at the end of November.

Also competing in the final Tuesday night fun run of the season were race walkers John Storms and Bonnie Love and runners Clark LaPrairie, Ben Cochridge and Cynthia Freeman.

More information about the running schedule in the Yukon and how to become a member of the organization can be found at yukonathletics.ca