For Ramstein’s Lowe, the gain is worth the pain

Ramstein’s Adden Lowe crosses the finish line during the boys 3,200-meter run at the 2026 Department of Defense Education Activity Europe track and field championships in Kaiserslautern, Germany, on May 21, 2026. Lowe took gold in the event with a season-best time of 10 minutes, 10.9 seconds. (Zade Vadnais/Stars and Stripes)

This spring, Adden Lowe and Ramstein teammate David Merrell discussed their mentalities heading into races when the latter mentioned they must expect to go full gas each time.

For Lowe, that struck a chord.

“It’s a better mentality for me personally to just accept that the race is going to hurt,” Lowe said. “You can be confident in your ability to maybe reach your goal, but confidence also comes with being realistic, too.”

That reasoning helped Lowe go 4 for 4 at last month’s DODEA European track and field championships, winning the 800-, 1,600- and 3,200-meter races and anchoring the Royals’ 4x800 relay that set a record at 8 minutes, 1.47 seconds.

He was named the meet boys track MVP. And because of his performance, Lowe was selected as Stars and Stripes’ DODEA-Europe boys track and field Athlete of the Year.

For all his success, the son of Sean and Lisa Lowe said he could have done better. His times of 2:01.57 in the half-mile, 4:30.05 in the mile and 10:10.90 weren’t as low as he had hoped.

“I just wish the times were a bit faster,” Lowe said. “It was definitely difficult, but I’m glad I got the win in all of them.”

Considering the unseasonably warm weather at Kaiserslautern High School on May 21-22, though, the middle- and long-distance races became more about who could push through the suffering the most, especially the last of all races – the 800.

And the Royal junior pointed to his cross country background as a major advantage.

Lowe has a Top-10 finish under his belt at the 2024 European cross country championships in a time of 17:36.20. While his 2025 performance didn’t meet the same heights, he still put in the mileage that transferred to spring.

“You got to be ready for your next race, and I think cross (with) just how much distance we run, it really prepared me to be able to handle a lot of different events,” Lowe said.

“It was survival of the fittest: who had the most endurance, which I think I did because of my base from cross country,” Lowe added about the 800.

To go with his stamina, Lowe mentioned how much speedwork he did over the winter and spring. That gave him the ability to hang with some of the quicker athletes in the half-mile race.

It also helped him in his favorite competition: the 1,600. Lowe described how it’s the perfect combination of speed and stamina, and it’s not as “boring” as the 3,200.

The first two laps are about getting his stride. The third lap is when he drops the hammer.

“It’s kind of a seamless race,” Lowe said. “I feel good when I run it. I feel fast when I run it. It definitely doesn’t hurt as much as the 800.”

The highlight was the record-breaking effort in the 4x800 relay. The Ramstein quartet of Rhett Dalling, Merrell, Skylar Hauck and Lowe beat the previous mark set by the former Patch High School in 2016 by 5 seconds.

As much as Lowe said the Royals were gunning for the record, they could thank their crosstown rivals for helping make it a reality.

Lowe admitted he was surprised to see Kaiserslautern anchor-leg Collin Higgins pass him on the front stretch in the first lap. That pushed him to go hard the rest of the way, nearly breaking the 8-minute mark.

“We were all super happy,” Lowe said of the 4x800 record. “In all honesty, we weren’t expecting them to put up as much of a fight as they did, and they were going hard. They were with us just about the whole time.”

Lowe isn’t happy with just having his name in the record books one time. This fall, he is looking to stand atop the podium at the cross country championships in what he said he hopes is a bounce-back season.

Then, he has his eyes on getting the school’s 1,600 mark next spring, as well as a few personal records in his other events.

He didn’t express much confidence about sweeping the distance events in 2027, pointing to the competition in the half-mile as being one of the biggest threats to repeating the feat.

“Pretty much will be the 800 is what I’ll be stressing about next year,” Lowe said.