When he was a senior at Midlothian High School near Richmond, Virginia, Jason Witt found it hard to race 2 miles on the track. In 2008, he told his local newspaper, the Chesterfield Observer, "Running is pretty much all mental. To be completely focused for eight laps and not give up is very challenging."

Now a senior at Brigham Young University, Witt, 25, is a top 10,000m runner in the NCAA, with a 27:54 PR. He also qualified for the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials after running 2:17:31 last October in Chicago.

Every spring, young collegiate athletes test the waters of the 10,000m for the first time. For some, like Witt, it's a gradual transition to the longer distance over several years. Others, like the University of Oregon's Edward Cheserek, who won the national title as a freshman in 28:30, jump in right away. But how can coaches and athletes be sure the time is right and the body is ready for the mental and physical demands of 6.2 miles on the track?

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Former Adams State coach Joe Vigil often bemoaned the lack of world-class 10,000m performances by American runners. In his 1995 book, How to Estimate Your Lactate Threshold Pace, Vigil wrote of the 10,000m as "simply an appendage of the 5,000." He wanted to see more young runners jumping into 10,000m races while in college, and he believed they could do so successfully, even when optimally trained for the 5,000m.

These days, the International Olympic Committee is considering trimming the 10,000m from the Olympic schedule, and elite athletes have few opportunities to contest the event.

But for now, many college coaches still embrace it. Todd Morgan, women's cross country and assistant track coach at the University of Virginia, thinks "the event is alive and well here in the NCAA." Last spring, Morgan found himself with three talented freshmen—Sarah Fakler, Jen Flack, and Maria Hauger—all eager to run the 10,000m during their first outdoor track season.

Morgan encouraged it. "If we held off the 10K for a year, the expectations for next year would compound," he says. "If you sit out, then the first time you do run a 10K, if you don't run close to 33:00, it's almost seen as a failure. I felt they needed to run a first one and set the bar."

He has no fear of putting young collegians in the 10,000m. "I think in the United States we focus a little bit too much on what not to do with running, on holding kids back just for the sake of holding them back," he says. "I don't think 18-year-old kids in Kenya are thinking that way. If they're enjoying it, then I'm not scared of burning a kid out."

His yardstick for knowing if an athlete is ready? If she is handling longer threshold sessions well and can get used to concentrating for 30-to 40-minute segments.

Fakler, Flack, and Hauger all ran in the low 34s last spring, although Hauger's season was cut short by a stress fracture. But she doesn't blame that on the 10,000m. "I did a lot of strength training and fairly high mileage in high school, up to about 65 miles a week my senior year," says Hauger, who finished third at the 2012 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships.

"And in the summers my favorite thing to do was run 10K road races, at least three each summer. I was doing enough mileage and had the aerobic fitness for the 10,000m, so it didn't make any sense to wait."

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Witt, on the other hand, waited until after his freshman year at BYU (when he ran the 1500m and 5,000m) and a two-year mission in Africa before making his 10,000m debut. It wasn't until last spring, as a junior, that he felt ready for the 10,000m at the Stanford Invitational.

"I knew going in that I was probably in the best shape of my life," he says, "so I felt breaking 29 minutes was realistic, and I didn't want to put limits on what I was capable of doing. I just wanted to get to the inside of Lane 1, settle into the group, and relax and let the laps go by."

He passed 5K in 14:29 and patiently ran between seventh and 10th place for more than 8K. At 5K, Witt says, he "gradually shifted into the racing mindset." He took the lead just before the bell and powered through the final lap in 59.5 to win in 28:36.64, just a stride ahead of his BYU teammate Jared Ward, a 10,000m veteran.

Did such a strong first effort at 10,000m prompt Witt to think about what he might have done as a freshman five years earlier? "I'm sure I wouldn't have done nearly as well," he says. "There are some guys who are prepared for it, who are just natural, pure distance runners and made for the 10K—guys who don't have a lot of speed but who can just go all day. It depends on the individual and their strengths."

There's no escaping the fact that the 10,000m is 25 long laps—and there's nowhere to hide if a race starts to go badly. But as for any event, proper preparation, a race plan, and going in with confidence is essential.

"I was definitely ready—really eager—but it depends on the individual," Hauger says. "You need to be really motivated for it and really want to do it. All three of us on our team were like, 'Yeah, that's the race we want to run.'"