Kasper Wise has a goal of running the 1600 meters in the low four twenties, to gain an athletic college scholarship that will pay for his college-but he attends a small country school, with his two brothers and cousin, that has no history of developing outstanding distance runners. Then Kasper finds he can gain admittance to a major university, if he can excel on a physics examination the school offers. He devotes much of his time studying for this very difficult test and then he must push his body to its physical limits in running everyday. Examining their training regimen and methods to solve physics problems gets detailed attention.
The community, confronted by some adverse activities and a stalker following the team's one girl distance runner, leads Kasper into situations that threatens and interferes with his running and studies. Kasper must use his knowledge of the German language to confront a situation and brute intelligence to solve a coded message for an English assignment.
Kasper is constantly being pushed to his limits to complete his goals and juggle his limited resources available.