Grayslake Central senior Adan Cordova is not just the fastest runner on the men’s cross country team, but arguably the fastest kid in school. Cordova can run a mile on average in roughly five minutes – and that’s just for practice.

Cordova trains by running around the neighborhood, solo and with his team. He aims to run 50 to 55 miles per week. He continues his training with 400 repeats, which he said are his “bread and butter.” When he’s training, he likes to listen to  Eminem and Tupac Shakur for motivation, saying, “I really like an old head.”

Adan started running cross country in the fifth grade. “I saw a [cross country] poster and I thought ‘oh my God, I think I’m fast, I think I can do this,” and the rest is history. He also said, “when I was younger, it was definitely very different than what I do now; it was a lot less back then.”

His cross country journey has had it’s ups and downs. Cordova’s sophomore cross country season was cut short due to what they believed was a heart abnormality, which they later found out was not the case.

Despite his grueling training regime and health scares, Cordova still has his eyes on the prize. When Cordova finishes a race, he said “There is definitely joy, but there is like this calling for to me to do more.”

Cordova’s 2025 Running Stats

1600 meters – 4:34.0

2 mile – 9:45.9

3 miles – 15:06.6