Har­ri­son Witt and Park­er Wolfe spent all spring tear­ing down state records.

It was only fit­ting that the two seniors did so again on the final day of the CHSAA state track and field cham­pi­onships Sat­ur­day at Jef­f­co Sta­di­um — and in the very same race.

Moun­tain Vista’s Witt shat­tered a 40-year-old all-class meet record in the Class 5A 1600-meter final by more than six sec­onds, surg­ing past Cher­ry Creek’s Wolfe in the final lap to win in 4 min­utes, 4.36 seconds.

“I didn’t want (Wolfe) to get away before the last lap,” Witt said. “I’m very con­fi­dent in my kick and my speed, so I want­ed to keep him in range to make a move. When he opened the inside up for me, I just fig­ured it was time to go and leave it all out on the track.”

The Prince­ton-bound senior did just that in beat­ing the meet record set by Widefield’s Rich Mar­tinez (4:10.98) in 1981. And if the race wasn’t his­toric enough, Wolfe topped Martinez’s record as well with a time of 4:10.09, fol­low­ing a famil­iar theme from the spring season.

In one sea­son, they’d both bro­ken state records and even their own per­son­al bests. Ear­li­er this sea­son, Wolfe took four sec­onds off Martinez’s record — only for Witt to slice anoth­er sec­ond off of it at 4:05.18 a week later.

On Sat­ur­day, the final race on the biggest stage didn’t disappoint.

Hun­dreds of cheer­ing fans in the bleach­ers start­ed to rise as Witt round­ed the last 200 meters. The “Go Har­ry!” cheers became loud­er as his eyes fix­at­ed on the fin­ish line. When he crossed it, he imme­di­ate­ly embraced his fam­i­ly and friends lined up along the fence.

“That was the great­est moment ever,” Witt said. “That’s the rea­son I even race to begin with is because of those guys and my fam­i­ly. It’s super spe­cial to go and give them big hugs after a race like that.”

After walk­ing off the track, he turned to Wolfe and the two embraced after a hard-fought bat­tle for the ages.

“He’s just incred­i­ble,” Witt said of the 2021 Gatorade nation­al boys cross coun­try run­ner of the year. “He’s one of the best ath­letes of our gen­er­a­tion. He’s been here all four years and a big inspi­ra­tion to me, he’s a great ath­lete and I was excit­ed to test my skills against him.”

End­ing in his­toric fash­ion, the per­for­mance cul­mi­nat­ed years of back-and-forth show­downs between the two.

Soon Witt and Wolfe will head off to Divi­sion I schools to com­pete in track and field at Prince­ton and North Car­oli­na-Chapel Hill, respec­tive­ly. They will for­ev­er be linked in Col­orado high school track his­to­ry and join the state’s endur­ing lega­cy of long-dis­tance runners.

“On the track, it def­i­nite­ly can be a rival­ry because he’s such a great ath­lete,” Witt said. “Off the track, there’s a lot of mutu­al respect there. He’s such a great guy, a great human being and I’m proud to be out on the track with him.”