GLASGOW — Zack Wheeler has wanted to be an Olympian since he started running track in sixth grade. On Friday, he will go a step further to reaching that dream.

“I’ve always been told that I was fast, so when the coach approached me to run for [Glasgow High School’s track and field team], I was happy to,” Wheeler said.

After two years with the GHS team, Wheeler, who now lives in Smiths Grove, began running for the Warren East High School team. But this weekend he will be running the 400-meter dash for the United States in the USA Track and Field National Junior Olympic Championships in Sacramento, Calif.

Wheeler qualified for nationals after winning USATF Kentucky Association Championships in Louisville and the Region Five championships in Richmond, which included runners from Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia and the Lake Erie region. In the association championships, he came in first out of five with a time of 56.24 seconds and in the regionals he beat 14 other runners with a time of 55.62 in the Youth Boys division.

“I was hoping that I would get to go, but really just to place at least, I didn’t expect to come in first,” Wheeler said.

In preparing for the national championships, Wheeler has been doing the same things he does in practice to take on older high school students in the area. He practices two days a week, through “extremely hard” workouts including all lengths of races, but the 400 meters is his favorite, he said.

His mother, Vicky Webb, and his aunt, Sherrie Ginter, have been his supporters all along and they will be the ones to fly with him to the championships. They were set to leave Thursday morning.

Webb isn’t sure where her son got his running talent, she just knows that he loves it so she supports it.

“He just came home one day from school and said he wanted to run track,” she said. “I said ‘OK!’ I thought it’s better than football.”

During his time in Glasgow, Wheeler was approached by the Amateur Athletic Union, but he and his mom decided not to run with them because it would be too much frequent driving to Louisville. But when a representative from the USATF approached them, they found it to be a better fit and started working toward the goal they will reach on Friday.

Both Webb and Ginter are former employees of Carhartt, Inc., and when the company heard about Wheeler, they offered to sponsor the family and pay all expenses that were needed to get to California, Webb said.

“It’s a big burden off my shoulders so it’s so great that they would do that for us,” she said.

So a few days after Wheeler’s freshman orientation at Warren East, he will be headed to the national stage and on his way to a future as an Olympian. But really, Wheeler isn’t getting his hopes up.

“We [he and his mom] have looked at the competition I’m up against and I don’t think I have a big chance of winning, but I’m just kind of glad I get to go,” he said, adding, though, that the idea of being a long shot just motivates him to try harder.

His mother is a little more optimistic.

“Around here he would always come in first place, but it’s different there so he’s got his work cut out for him ... it will be a good experience for him. We’re very excited,” she said.

To Know

Wheeler runs the first round of the 400 meter dash on Friday at 12:30 p.m. PT. Should he advance, he will run in a final on Sunday at 11:30 a.m.