No great athlete can accomplish great things without making great sacrifices, and Seneca’s Christopher Collet is no exception. His greatest sacrifice?

Ice cream.

Fans of butter pecan, rocky road and butter brickle can certainly identify with the Fighting Irish star’s affection for the chilly treat, something that he had to completely stay away from while he strived for, trained hard to reach and eventually accomplished the goal of becoming one of the greatest distance runners in IHSA history.

By fully adopting the “runner’s lifestyle” that includes proper rest and proper diet — minus, among other things, the best Breyer’s or Ben and Jerry have to offer — Collet had his body in peak condition in his senior season to win the coveted distance triple, following his 1A cross country state championship last fall with victories in the two longest distance in track, the 1600- and 3200-meter runs, in Charleston last month.

“You have to live a certain life in order to be a successful distance runner, that’s for sure,” said Collet, who had been an IESA 1600 state champ and all-state in IHSA cross country since his sophomore year but didn’t win his first high school track medal until last season. “The way I eat, what I eat, how much I eat has really influenced the way I train for a race over the last four years. … I never really counted calories, but for me, the biggest challenge was staying away from ice cream. I had to completely cut that out, because I cannot control myself around ice cream, I love it so much.

“Any ice cream, it doesn’t matter what flavor. I wanted to celebrate state with it, but I hadn’t had it in so long, I could hardly finish a single bowl of it … but it was worth it.”

Collet would have been a sure bet — not sherbet — to medal again in the 3200 after his clocking of 9 minutes, 51.16 seconds last spring netted him seventh place, but his dedication to a healthier body since then made him a threat to win any event he entered, starting with cross country. His time of 14:45.25 at Detweiller Park in Peoria last November proved that, and he was just getting started.

He hit the ground running in track and field with an indoor PR of 4:4:25.41 in the 1600 at the Top Times Indoor State Meet at Illinois Wesleyan's Shirk Center in Bloomington and winning both distance races at the Irish Invitational and Tri-County Conference meets.

But Collet, who will continue running at Wartburg College this fall, feels the highlight for his regular season came at Bolingbrook’s 52nd annual Carlin Nalley Invite, where against 2A and 3A competition he won the 3200 with a time of 9:25.88 and finished third in the mile behind 3A standouts Mark Lemke of Jacobs and Thomas Leonard of Marist with a 4:36.13.

“I think I’m a lot more constant for a runner than I have been in the past,” he said. “In previous seasons, I would just sit and kick, sit and kick, and I wasn’t really confident enough to take the lead. Now I know I’m good enough to take on the lead and control the race at my own will. I’m much more confident in myself as a runner.

“State cross country helped me with that, and this season I think it was the 3200 at the Nally Invite. There was a pretty decent field there, and I knew I had to take on the lead, and just ran completely in my own head, comfortable and relaxed and ready to run the pace I needed to, even though he stuck right on me. I ran my own race confidently and ended up winning by 15-20 seconds.”

Well-prepared for the Irish Sectional, he won the 3200 in 9:37.06 and the 1600 in 4:32.18 to earn his trip to Charleston. There, Collet was clearly the class of the 1A 3200, conscious of saving what he could for the mile but still winning easily in 9:36.99.

The 1600 was much more dramatic.

In third place with 250 meters left, he bolted past leaders Noah McIntyre of Athens and Robinson’s Negus Bogard in the final 200 to win in 4:24.71, the three fingers of his right hand held up to symbolize his triple titles.

“The season as a whole for me, obviously, was outstanding,” said Collet. “There was some really great competition at some very competitive meets and my coach helped me and the rest of the team be prepared and compete well every time we got to compete.

“I progressed throughout the whole season with my times, and then at state I raced the way I had to to win. But the times were dropping and I was getting faster. … Our coach changed up our training, more interval-based than just distance, distance, distance. There was more 400 repeats, 1,000 repeats, different training than we’d done in the past. It was similar to what I did over the summer, so it was more comfortable for me. That’s the kind of training that really works for my body.”

With all his accomplishments and championships, Collet is most proud of the fact that he leaves Seneca with three school records and almost a fourth. His 4:19.86 in the 1600, his 9:25.7 in the 3200 and his 1:56.73 in the 800 run are all all-time Irish marks. And he missed the 400 standard by a mere second.

“I could never really pick one accomplishment. The team titles, winning sectionals, being a part of that, is always right up there,” he said. “If I had to, I guess it’s the three individual school records. That’s me being the best at Seneca. That’s important to me, to leave there with those. … I ran a split faster than the 400 record in a relay, so Coach (Terry Maxwell) put me in the open 4 and there was no competition that day. It was a bad day to run it. Still, I came close at :58.4 in the shortest race I ever have to run. I think I’d be OK with others, too. Everyone saw at state that I can close a 200 meters pretty fast.

“The mile is fun, but the two mile is more a show of how strong a runner someone actually is, how much training they’re willing to do, how much effort they’re willing to put into it. It’s a test of the lifestyle you need to be a good runner.”

Sacrifices and all.