New Zealand's running wonderkid is still basking in the afterglow of breaking yet another world record over the weekend.
Sam Ruthe became the fastest 16-year-old to run a mile with a time of 3:53:83 at the Cooks Classic on Sunday.
"I'm having a wonderful time, it's just starting to all sink in. Life couldn't get any better at the moment," Ruthe told Breakfast.
"It really doesn't seem real to me at all, I cannot even imagine being anywhere near people like Rod Dixon and then to go out there and run a mile... he's there supporting and saying how he ran 3:54 on a grass track is absolutely ridiculous."
But there was one thing capable of stopping the Tauranga teen: schoolwork.
"At the [Allan and Sylvia Potts] Classic, in the 800m that I just raced, I qualified for World Indoors... but you know I've got to go to school!
"It's so hard to decide what I do because I'm just about to leave for four weeks just as school's starting."
Ruthe was heading off to the United States today for four 4-mile races.
"I'm not sure if I can go over to Poland and race World Indoors and miss even more school. I've got to be quite picky about what international meets I go to."
He would turn 17 in April, which he said was perfect timing for the track season — which finished towards the end of March.
"I get the whole season to run as fast as possible," he said.
With the US providing indoor tracks in the next few weeks, there were still plenty more opportunities for records to fall with Ruthe on a roll.
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