Preparing for his fifth and final year of U Sports eligibility, Guelph Gryphon turned Western Mustang Logan Spicer appears poised for a breakthrough.

But track and field is nothing if not subject to the fickle finger of game day fate.

In the case of the 23 year-old sprinter – jumper, the simple truth is that the stars must align over the course of a 15-second or less interval.

Spicer has experienced the thrill of just such a celestial convergence, establishing a new personal best time in the 100m dash earlier this summer of 10.58 seconds.

The graduate of Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School who completed his undergraduate degree in Kinesiology from the University of Guelph last summer and is now well into the consecutive four semester Teachers College offering at Western University has also borne the pain of hours and hours of training that do not produce that magical moment when all comes together.

Regardless of how this all plays out for the remainder of this summer and the 2026-2027 indoor U Sports track and field season, Logan Spicer is going to continue to live these highs and lows, athletically speaking – at least for a bit.

It’s kind of how he is wired.

“Track is kind of the centre of everything that I care about tight now,” stated the local product who captured bronze in the high jump at the Canadian Legion Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2018.

“It’s so hard to put a finger of just one thing as the reason for my passion. It comes down to the feeling I get through training, through competing, through seeing improvement.”

“It’s the way I can challenge myself on a day to day basis.”

A year into his university career at Guelph, Spicer seemed to be well on his way to a gradual ascent that could / would culminate in matching up against the very best Canadian post-secondary student-athletes on the track.

Over the ensuing three years, performances plateaued – for a whole variety of reasons. A nagging ankle ailment curtailed the training he could complete in pursuit of a long jump disipline that saw him qualify for U Sports in his fourth year with the Gryphons, advancing to the finals and finishing eighth.

On the track, a personal best time of 6.94 seconds in the 60m dash in year one gave way to 6.95 in year two and 6.96 in year three. Logan Spicer was still fast, still competitive in a national setting. He was not, however, enjoying that jump to another level, the kind of performance that lands one on the radar of national team entries into meets that are not quite at the standards of the Olympics or World Championships.

Through it all, he persevered.

“I don’t think that point (of packing it in) ever really came from me just because track is where my passion is,” said Spicer. “Even if my results weren’t showing what I wanted them to show, I knew that I was putting in the work and I knew that it wasn’t just going nowhere.”

There would be glimpses.

And then came the 2025-2026 indoor season, by which time he was attending Western and limited to non U Sports competition due to the in-house transfer rules. “I essentially went through what would have been the equivalent of a collegiate indoor season – but instead of competing at the OUA Championships and U Sports, I went to Canadian Indoor Nationals.”

Not that Spicer needed any kind of extra spark to get excited about what the future holds in store – but the track gods delivered one anyways. “This past year has been my best season to date,” he noted. “I ran a PB of 6.72 in the 60m that would have ranked me fourth in the country (in the U Sports field).”

“That is where I saw the most progress.”

Now training under Western head coach and 2026 Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame inductee Caroline Ehrhardt and her husband Taylor, Spicer can point to some slight variances in training – running a bit more volume; limiting lifting to twice a week; garnering a better handle on nutrition – even if he knows that there is no simple answer to the question of the reasons for his improvement this year.

“The thing about track and sprinting – and sports in general, really – is that they are so multi-factorial,” noted Spicer. “There are so many different components that play into it. Even just being in Teachers College – it’s a much less stressful environment and it brings me more gratification.”

“There are several components that worked out well this year.”

And that, above all else, has Spicer chomping at the bit for his one final shot at the U Sports Championship.

“I can win U Sports in the 60m this year; that is a very realistic goal,” he said. “I have a big sense of confidence just because I’ve had such a good training block building up to this season.”

And if not, Logan Spicer will take it all in stride. He understands the fickle nature of his pursuits.

“I like to have high expectations of myself – perhaps slightly delusionally confident.”