There are plenty of lessons Gabe Torregrosa learned from an injury-plagued 2008-09 athletic year, not the least of which is gas station hamburgers are not his friend.

Despite nearly missing the 5A Gila Valley Region Track meet with an illness that left him hospitalized, the Yuma High senior still won a medals a state and was named the 2009 Yuma Rotary/The Sun Boys Track Athlete of the Year.

Torregrosa earned the cross country version of the award in the fall after taking 10th at state. He had suffered through food poisoning on the way to one meet, but still rebounded.

"The food poisoning, that just taught me never to buy gas station burgers," Torregrosa said through a laugh. "It's just not a good idea, especially not at six in the morning after you wake up. Just not a nutritious meal. Sounded cheap, sounded good - no."

After cross country, Torregrosa tried his hand at wrestling for the first, but dislocated his shoulder early on. He tried wrestling through the pain, but to no avail. The injury, however, did help him gain an upper hand heading into the track season, he said.

"I had to rehab my shoulder injury, so the only way I could talk myself into staying after school to work with the athletic trainer to rehab my shoulder was to also stay after and run," Torregrosa said. "I ended up starting training in January, and if you look at the sports calender, track starts in March. So I got a big jump on track and that helped me out a lot. While most guys were just starting to get warmed up, I came up and was already posting fast times."

That head start carried through to the Class 5A Division II State Track Championships, where he anchored the Criminals' 3,200 relay team which took fourth and set a school record. But he was still ill from what almost kept him out of regionals and failed to medal in any other event - including needing to be treated for exhaustion after running the open 3,200.

Torregrosa began feeling ill the week before the region tournament, coming down with flu symptoms including a high fever. He went to a clinic where he was treated twice and they gave him various medicines and shots, but nothing broke the fever, he said.

Finally, he went to the emergency room when his fever wouldn't drop from 104. There, they figured out he had both mononucleosis coupled with tonsillitis. He stayed overnight and was released at 1 p.m. on the day of the regional. And he still had to go to school to be able to run in the meet - and failed to qualify in the 1,600.

"The mile is my baby," Torregrosa said. "I had only lost twice this year, and one was to the state champion in 5A-I and the other was to a kid from California. ... I was sitting pretty in the mile and I was one second from outside qualifying. The one big meet we went to at Chandler I won, but finished a second off the time. If there was someone fast there pushing me, I would have qualified."

Torregrosa said the first thing any distance runner learns is competing through pain - something that came in handy this season.

"One of the big fundamentals you learn as a distance runner is if it hurts during the race, you don't stop your race," Torregrosa said. "Just cause two miles into your three mile race, that doesn't mean you give up. It's kind of a stubbornness that comes with distance running.

Even if you get injured, it's just been ingrained in you not to give up that you're going to keep pushing anyway." Torregrosa said he's learned a valuable lesson this season about perseverance and faith.

"All that training, it will be for something. It's not just going to be for nothing. There will be a point where you can use it," Torregrosa said. "I didn't get to compete (at full strength) in regionals even though I was kind of favored in four events and expected to be one of the top performer and I was setting myself up for state, and I got sick. But I still have that shot state and I'm grateful for that."