Los Lunas runner Alejandro Bachicha sets 400 hurdles record

Alejandro Bachicha turned a race he had never run before into a state-best mark at Albuquerque Academy, clocking 58.39 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles and giving Los Lunas another result to point to on the track.

The Los Lunas Tiger produced the record on July 8, less than two months after the State High School Track & Field Championships, and the performance landed as more than a summer-meet surprise. Bachicha’s time established an age-group USA Track & Field New Mexico record, a sharp jump for an athlete who had apparently not run the 400 hurdles before.

That detail made the effort stand out in Valencia County, where Bachicha has already shown he can be shifted into different roles and still deliver. In the spring, he helped Los Lunas set a school record in the 4x400 relay after being added to the lineup on short notice, a reminder that the Tigers have been able to move him around without losing quality at the finish.

For Los Lunas, the 58.39 is also a sign of what the program has been building beyond the county line. Albuquerque Academy has long been a familiar stage for metro track competition, and Bachicha’s run put a local athlete in the middle of that setting with a mark that reached past a routine meet result. It showed a runner who could adapt quickly to a technical event and still control the race fast enough to leave with a record.

The performance adds another line to a spring and summer that already has Bachicha emerging as one of the Tigers’ more versatile competitors. Coaches who trust him in relays and on individual legs now have a hurdler who can convert a first attempt into a record, and Los Lunas has a new example of how its athletes can measure themselves against the best competition available in the state.