MOOSOMIN — Luke Holman of Moosomin has competed at Track and Field meets all over North America and has won eight provincial Track and Field medals over the past two years, as well as two provincial Cross Country medals.
Holman graduated high school in June and is attending the University of Regina this fall to pursue a degree in Actuarial Science and continue Track and Field as a U of R Cougar.
Holman moved to Regina this past year for his Grade 12 year to dedicate more time to training for Track and Field.
“I grew up in Moosomin. My family moved here when I was about two months old, and I went to school in town. My dad works at the Nutrien Rocanville Mine and my mom is a school teacher. I have four younger sisters.
“This year for my Grade 12 year I decided to move to Regina to focus on my track training. Last year I was driving to Regina all the time and also trying to keep up with homework. In the winter, I either had to drive to Regina or train in minus 40 degrees on the roads in town and that was not fun, but it was about 15 hours of driving a week. It got to be a lot.”
Sports oriented
Holman grew up playing many sports and began Track and Field later in his teenage years.
“I grew up playing baseball, that was the first sport that I liked the most. I also played hockey. I did school track in Grade 9, that is the first year you can compete at provincials, and in Grade 9 one of my friends told me about this track camp in the summer in Regina. It’s the Saskatchewan Legion Track Camp and it’s tryouts for Team Sask, so I thought I’d give it a shot, and I did nine events in a day and a half, almost everything, which usually isn’t recommended, and I’ll never do it again. I did the 300m, 800m, 1,200m, and 2,000m, and I won all four of those. I got second in 200m hurdles. I did high jump, one steeple chase, pole vault, and long jump. I also won male athlete of the camp there that year in 2024, and I made Team Sask and got to compete at nationals in Sherbrooke, Quebec. At nationals that year I got sixth in the 300m and I did well in the 800m too, I was competing U16.
“I also did cross country that year, during the school year, I went to districts, and I won it. Then, I went to provincials, and my mom kept telling me on the car ride there, ‘You don’t go to provincials to win—just have fun. Aim for top 20!’ And I just took it as motivation to win, so I decided I was going to keep running to see how long I can stick with the group of guys. So I went to the front and ended up getting second.”
Training on grid roads
Holman says he trained in Moosomin by running on grid roads even in the midst of winter.
“Then I decided I wanted to start training, but I didn’t want to give up other sports yet. The next year in Grade 10 at high school provincials I didn’t do so great. I still got one bronze, but I wanted to do better. I also competed at the Sask Summer Games in Lloydminster and won two silvers and a bronze. Then I decided I wanted to see what I could do if I actually start training. The next year in Grade 11, I started training and gave up the other sports so I quit hockey and baseball, and trained for track all summer, all winter. That was when I had to train outside, which was not ideal. I bundled up and went for a run. I went to the grid roads lots because sometimes paved roads would get to be straight ice.
“In the fall of 2024 I was going into Grade 11 and I joined Excel Athletica in Regina.”
“It is event-specific coaching for Track and Field. It’s a great place with great coaches and awesome teammates I would train with. I was driving all the time to Regina to train which was a lot with school on top of being on the road so much. I competed at indoor nationals in Toronto in February 2025 and got bronze. I competed in Edmonton at Westerns. I also competed at outdoor nationals in Calgary that following August.”
Moving to Regina
Holman moved to Regina this past fall to train full-time for Track and Field.
“After winning bronze at nationals in Toronto I was really excited, and decided I didn’t want to do all the driving anymore because I had no time for school. So I moved to Regina for my Grade 12 year this past fall and it became a lot easier when I had time to study and train full-time. I attended Martin Academy this year, it was the closest school to where my billets lived. My billets were a family friend. My grandparents grew up with them, and my mom lived with them for a year at one time.”
Training at Excel Athletica
Holman explains his training schedule in Regina and food that fuels his body for long runs.
“Mondays and Wednesdays we do an easy run which is a slower run. I keep my heart rate around 140. I go about seven or eight kilometres for that. Then Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are faster interval training sessions, and Sunday we do a long run, so that can be anywhere up to 17 kilometres. There are about 20 of us who are part of the distance group at Excel.
“Track is a weird sport in the sense you can’t keep training constantly because your body needs more time to recover. Otherwise, if you just keep pushing, then you start to go backwards.”
Holman explains fueling his body before competing. “For competitions, I make sure to eat about four hours before my race. I eat a good meal with veggies and carbs, and a little bit of protein. That was a bit of trial and error—because before, I would eat about an hour before my race and was fine, but eventually, I started feeling I was eating too much right before. I’ve heard coach say, ‘When I was racing, I’d have a big meal four hours before,’ so I started doing that, and it works good.
“For training, it basically depends on the session. If it’s a harder session, sometimes we do a bunch of 300s at 600 metre pace, those ones hurt. So I’ll try to do the four hours before for those, but my eating can be more flexible when training.”
Triple gold at Provincials this year
Holman competed June 5 and 6 at provincials in Saskatoon and won three gold medals.
“This year I just won triple gold at provincials. I won the 800m and ran the second fastest time in meet history. Then I won the 1500m, and my team won the 4×4.”
Holman competes in many long distance events.
“The 800m is my main event. The 1,500m is my secondary event. Those are the two that I really focus on. I enjoy running the 1,500 more, but I’m much better at the 800.
“I always thought I could be a sprinter and that did not work. It’s fun. I really like the training part of it with friends. The competitions just hurt a lot.”
“I also competed at nationals this year in Ottawa. It was two weeks after provincials and my mom came with me.”
Holman says training has helped with his confidence while competing.
“Before I started training, I got so nervous before races. My first year when I went to Sherbrooke, I raced at 1 pm and I tried to eat at 7 am, I ate half an omelet, and my nerves wouldn’t let me eat any more and I did not have enough fuel for that race. Now that I’ve started training, I still get nervous before races, but I’ve come to realize that running, you can’t really do anything at the race, you get yourself in a good position, and your fitness comes from the training. You just gotta trust it. I still get nervous, but nowhere near as much as I used to.”
Competing in the States
Holman qualified to compete in Boston and was invited to New York this past March.
“I competed at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in Boston, which is the biggest meet in North America for indoor track and it’s very hard to qualify for. Only 10 athletes from Saskatchewan, across every event, qualified for it. My dad came with me and that was really cool. Two others from my team qualified to go as well. It was one of the nicest indoor tracks I’d ever seen. I also got to watch some top-notch talent run, like Quincy Wilson, I got to watch him. I was also invited to compete in New York, which was also a great experience.
“This is my second year training and I never expected this, not right when I started. I never thought I’d be competing outside of Canada.
Indoor racing more challenging
Holman says indoor track races are more challenging compared to outdoor tracks.
“Races are harder if they are more packed because there’s so little room. It’s only 200 metres on the indoor track. The track itself is half the size indoors compared to outdoors, so if you get boxed in, there’s no way to get out, and you only have 50 metres on the straights to pass people instead of 100. So it’s much harder tactically.”
Competes in Cross Country
Holman competes in cross country all across Canada as well. He competed in London, Ontario for nationals last year.
“I’ve competed in quite a few cross-country competitions now and cross country is an eight kilometre run, always. The long hills I dislike, but it’s fun to hang out with the guys and friends. I won gold at club provincials for cross country last year and placed second this year. Club provincials is put on by Sask Athletics and everybody can go. The winner gets 75 per cent of their flight paid to go to nationals and I won. I then competed in London, Ontario for Cross Country Nationals.”
Attending U of R this fall
Holman is committed to the University of Regina Track and Field team for the 2026 school year.
“I will be attending the University of Regina this fall for a degree in Actuarial Science and competing in track and field. I know most of the guys on the team already, and the coaches so I am excited. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.
“University has its own circuit for cross country and track and field. I will be on the travel team because your top five athletes score points for the team, and you want the least amount of points to win because they add up your placement each meet, those are individual titles. Say somebody gets first and third, you get four points, but you take your top five points, and whoever gets the least amount of points, that team wins so I should be a fifth guy for cross country. There’s a CanWest Competition, which is Manitoba to BC schools, and then USports Championship against all the universities in Canada. The U of R got second last year at CanWest. Then for track and field it’s similar. They have CanWest competitions that you can qualify for USports.”
Holman says he is excited to push himself while training with other university athletes this fall.
“I’m really looking forward to training with the guys, they’re really fast. They’re not way faster than me, I can keep up, but they’re just fast enough that can they can push me to be better.”
Male Athlete of the Year at Martin Collegiate
Holman was named Male Athlete of the Year along with many other high school athletic distinctions.
“I was awarded the cross country athlete of the year and track athlete of the year. Martin also has a hockey team at the school so if you don’t play AA or higher you can play. Each school gets a team and you play against other schools in Regina. I played and was awarded hockey MVP, and we won the city championships. I was also awarded Male Athlete of the Year at Martin.
“I won the math award for highest average in math and got bronze for the overall average in Grade 12. I was awarded the Teacher Choice Award for a 98.4 average as well.
“I also won cross country championships, and I won the Regina Aggregate Award for track after winning triple gold at provincials this year. It’s awarded to the athlete with the most points. You’re allowed to do four events, and first place is worth 10 points, and second place is worth eight, and so on. I got three firsts and a second, so I had 38 points and won the aggregate.”
Upcoming goals
Holman has future goals of winning a U Sports title while completing his degree.
“Cross country is more of a time to hang out with people. It’s really far. I’m more of an 800m racer, but I want to try to win a U Sports. It’s not going to be this year, but hopefully by my fourth or fifth year I can win something.”
He explains his most memorable win in track and field competitions.
“I will always remember my indoor bronze in 2025 in Toronto. It was my first year into training. I had been training for about five months at that point. The day before, I ran a 1500 and somebody sliced my knuckle with their spikes on accident. It wasn’t bad, but it was like right at the beginning of the race. I was in third with 40 metres to go, and then somebody passed me, but the next day I came back for the 800m, and I was in fourth with about 50 metres to go, and I passed him by barely less than a foot at the finish line and grabbed bronze.”
Summer at home
Holman is a summer student for the Town of Moosomin and trains in the evenings.
“I’m still training over the summer. I work for the Town of Moosomin this summer and so I train in my evenings. Cross country is in the fall and as soon as cross country’s over, I take a week or two off, then I do indoor track. Right now, I just started training for cross country. This is my first week doing cross country. I’ll have a cross country meet at the end of September in Saskatoon. Cross country starts in early fall and ends in November. Then indoor track starts in January.”
Holman says what he enjoys about competing is setting and accomplishing goals.
“I think sports are important because it helps you build goals and figure out how to work toward them. You learn to create strategies for yourself, and I find it can help in anything, not just sports.
“When I play sports, I can just have fun, and forget about everything else. I don’t have to worry about school. I don’t have to worry about the upcoming math test, I can just have fun with my friends.”
