Every week, Doug Hopster set up a schedule for his Highland cross country runners — the type of training, the amount of miles, the times to shoot for. And every week, Jared Harden would ask him to change it, ever so slightly, to fit where Harden felt he needed to improve.

“Jared always had his idea of what he needed to do, and he would bounce that off of me,” Hopster said. “I would make a schedule for the team, and then he would come to me and we would tweak it. Any time a kid is driven, if they want to do stuff that’s not necessarily something that I always do — if they feel that will benefit them, and they buy into what they’re doing, I’m fine with it.

“He was always looking for that something extra so that he could set himself apart from his competition.”

That dedication drove Harden through a self-described “amazing” development at Highland, one that started when he ran around 23 minutes in his first 5K as a freshman and ended with a 15:55 and fifth-place finish at the 5A state championships as a senior.

Harden signed with Idaho State for cross country and track earlier this month.

“I fell in love with it because I was like, ‘Oh, running could be fun,’” Harden said. “I didn’t know how great I wanted to be, but I worked really hard.”

Harden, who ran the city meet in middle school only on the recommendation of his geography teacher, went out for cross country in high school on the urging of two friends.

By the end of his freshman track season in the spring, he was one of only two freshmen to qualify for the 5A championships in the mile.

The other? Borah’s Nathan Green, who became one of the most sought-after cross country recruits in the nation and recently committed to Washington.

That kicked off Harden’s fascination with running.

“I was like, wow, this is really cool, to get here and come and do these things,” Harden said about that freshman-year meet. “After that freshman track season, that’s where I did a lot of research and stuff and tried to learn more about the sport.”

“He’s highly motivated and, I would say, a student of the sport,” Hopster added. “He knows everything about the sport, he’s very driven.

“Running is sort of a cult. Once you get into a cult, that’s all you think about. He’s one of the few. There are people that are runners and then there are people that want to be really good.”

Harden cut his 5K from just under 19 minutes as a freshman to under 16:30 as a sophomore.

“When he was a freshman, he came in and he was an OK runner,” Hopster said. “He actually wasn’t one of the top runners. ... By his sophomore year, he made a huge jump and was one of the best runners on the team.”

Despite the slow start to his career and missing his junior track season due to COVID-19, Harden’s sophomore year and junior cross country season got him on the radar of Idaho State cross country coach Nate Houle.

For a runner who wanted to stay close to home, there was no better fit — Harden’s mother is a digital librarian at ISU, and his house is just off the campus.

After taking for multiple years, the Bengals offered Harden just after his strong performance at the state meet this year.

“I was really familiar with (Houle), then I got to meet the head track coach and that was really cool, getting on a couple Zoom calls and talking to them, talking about my future at ISU,” Harden said. “So I think it was a pretty comfortable process, went really great over there at ISU.”

It will be a few years before Harden can get on the track for the Bengals, as he’ll be going on a two-year church mission after graduation.

Even before that, he’ll have his senior track season in the spring — one last chance to continue his startling improvement in high school.

“I’m pretty happy about it, it’s just pretty cool,” Harden said. “Reflecting back, and I haven’t done too much reflecting because the year’s not over, nor is my high school career, but just thinking about all the people who’ve gotten me here, it’s just been amazing to have the team dinners, all my teammates, all the parents and coaches. I love it so much, I’m so very thankful for it.”