Welcome to the 2012 Sequoia H.S Cross Country Pre-Season Guide!

The go-to handbook about vital

summer information, season expectations, and a splattering of news, inspiration, history and must-have material for the 2012 SEQ XC Season. Everything assembled here has been put together for a reason: to make a difference in YOUR life as a runner. Contact Info: Head Coach Andrew Hutchinson (alias Coach Drew) 650-464-6126 :: ahutchinsonshs@gmail.com Assistant Coach Bruce Wernick (alias Coach Bruce) 650-533-2119 :: brucewernick@sbcglobal.net
2012 Mission Statement: Pushing Beyond All Expectations
Our future has arrived. The 2012 team will be here to seize the day, to bond and grow as a single unit, and to pursue new standards of excellence.

First Day of Official Team Practice: Friday August 10th @ 1:00pm at the Sequoia Track Athlete-Led Summer Workouts: Monday, Wednesday, Friday @ 3:00pm at the Sequoia Softball Field (west-side of school on Elwood/Katherine)

Parent-Night Meeting: Thursday August 23rd

Official Team Website: http://sequoiahs.org/?id=1087

2012 Summer Expectations / Guidelines Participate! Run in a timed event (they can be found in the following pages) Condition! Train all summer long with athleteinitiated programs (organized by team captains) Mon, Weds, Fri at 3:00pm. BE THERE! Come to Camp! The Bay Area Running Camp is taking place 7/23 - 7/27. Check out www.bayarearunningcamp.com for more info. Get Cleared! BEFORE FIRST OFFICIAL PRACTICE IN AUGUST YOU MUST HAVE A PHYSICAL ON FILE. Forms can be picked up and turned in at the AVPs office. Doctors must sign-off on the forms. Blue cards turned in to Coach. Physicals are good for one calendar year! Bond with the team! Do something fun this summer. Barbeque, Swim, Movies get involved! Adventure into the Wild! The first 20 members of the team who RSVP will be able to embark on a camping trip for FREE in the 3rd annual XC camping adventure to Memorial Park. Run, run, run. Get outside, and run!

Why Cross Country?

All eyes on you. The starting line, waiting with all of your teammates. All of the hard work put into the season. All of the miles. Progress enough to see the seasons change. That feel-good-exhausted-sweaty feeling from being done. Each team on the same line, on the same day with their own stories and expectations. Three miles over hill and terrain, all out -- no guts no glory -- finish on empty. In November 1974, Steve Prefontaine wrote down notes giving excellent insight into his take on the sport of cross country running -notes he used in a speech at a banquet for the National Junior College Cross Country Championships. This is what he wrote down: As a sport: a) cross country is a team sport of individuals (the total score is important). Your number five man is just as important as your number one man. b) Each man competes against himself, and that way he helps the team. Why cross country: a) you could have picked an easier sport such as football. b) you were probably too small to play football. What cross country does for the athlete: a) it builds toughness (both mentally and physically). b) Character - you have to be a special breed of cat to get up at 5 or 6 in the morning for that workout. c) Builds Pride - when you succeed in a tough workout or race you feel good about it, and you should. d) Dedication - You have to be dedicated, because you are the only person that can do the work, no one else can do it for you. e) Friendship - the guys you work out with have a very common bond and interest. All of you relate to the work you have done and have to do. Three key factors to successful running: 1) Diet 2) Rest 3) Training. All must be consistent. Training and racing: -As an individual -As a team, know your competition. Know the course. Practice for the race. The freedom provided by running is something we capture and exemplify. Running like you were born to fly. Getting muddy, dirty,

sweaty, exhausted, sharing awkward moments with your teammates, playing capture the flag, building friendships and relationships, training a little more each day, and improving overall as an athlete. Our Sequoia program is one of the most storied on the peninsula. 6 athletes have been named All-Northern California. 22 have earned AllLeague. Jack Daniels, 1950 graduate of Sequoia High School was named "World's Best Running Coach" by Runner's World Magazine. 2011 saw the fastest boys team and fastest girls team in school history, and became the first time either team qualified for CCS in back-to-back seasons. This year we want you to be a part of our tradition, our legacy, our family. Help us continue to achieve greatness. All eyes on you.

THREE STEPS TO SUCCESS OF SEQUOIA XC

1. TEAM
Cross Country is a team sport. We are only as good as our fifth runner. It takes each members dedication, loyalty, and commitment to become a successful unit.

2. FUN
Serious workouts do not equal serious pain. We are here to enjoy ourselves, to foster creativity, to learn and grow, and ultimately to bring excitement and tradition back to this organization.

3. TRAINING
We will work hard. We will improve at an individual level as well as a collective one. We will achieve a high level of fitness. Improvement in mind and body throughout the season will be our primary goal.

Summer Trail Runs/5Ks

ItishighlyrecommendedthatbeforebeginningcrosscountryinAugust thatyouraceinoneofthefollowingevents!DoNOTraceineveryeventthis summer.NotifyCoachDrewofentryforfeereimbursement.Notethat someeventsrequirepaymentupfront.Marathons/HalfMarathonsand distancesover8KareHIGHLYDISCOURAGED(asbodieshavenotadaptedto thatdistance)toregisteronline,entertheracenameatthewebsitegiven.

Date Sun.6/3/12 Sat.6/23/12

Time 8:00am 8:00am

Race LakeChabot TrailChallenge5K PackardSummer Scamper5K RedwoodCity ParadeRun6K GoldenGateTrail Run5Mile SanBruno MountainTrail5K SummerBreeze Trail5K

Location LakeChabot RegionalPark Stanford,CA RedwoodCity RodeoBeach Sausalito,CA SanBruno MountainPark SanLeandro MarinaPark

Website Active.com Google.com Paraderun.org Google.com Active.com

Weds.7/4/12 8:45am Sat.7/14/12 8:00am

Sun.7/22/12 9:00am Sat.8/4/12 Sun.8/5/12 8:00am 9:00am

Brazenracing.com

SanFran.Presidio WestPacificAve Active.com CrossCountry5K &SpruceSt

2012 Summer Camping Trip

Join us for the 3rd annual Sequoia Cross Country Team Camping Trip. Once again we will be camping in the wilderness of Memorial County Park on the last weekend of July, leaving Sequoia by private vehicle at 12 noon on Friday July 27th. Space is limited to the first 20 athletes who RSVP. Group will return at approximately 12 noon on Sunday July 29th. Campsites Sequoia B15 and B17 have been booked (side by side). Chaperones will be Head Coach Andrew Hutchinson, Assistant Coach Bruce Wernick, and Parent Volunteer Gordon Bliss. The high school has entrusted the oversight of the chaperones and coaches involved to provide safe accommodations and supervision for all students involved and has granted permission to provide adequate provisions to cover food, shelter, transportation, a medical kit and other necessities for the trip. The trip will be of no cost to students, other than the required provisions needed for the experience. The goal of the trip will be for outdoor team bonding, fun, and an emphasis on getting to know one another and what to expect for the upcoming season. Training will not be emphasized, as the activities undertaken (swimming, hiking, exploring, Frisbee, outdoor games) will satisfy this need.

2012 Season Expectations

1. EVERY SPOT ON THIS TEAM IS EARNED The hard work you put into this season will reflect in progress no matter where you place on the team. It is NOT an easy sport, but for every challenge along the way you are bettering yourself as an athlete. 2. ATTENDENCE Once the season begins, practice will take place at 4:00pm after school 5 days a week, and on Saturdays at 10:00am. Come prepared, ready to run, and with water to stay hydrated. A monthly schedule will be given at the start of each month detailing practice locations and times. 3. MORNING PRACTICE This season there will be 12 morning practices. These run from the end of August (Tuesday 8/21) through the end of September (Thursday 9/27) on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30am. Bagels and juice will be provided. 4. MISSING PRACTICE Illness, injury and scheduling conflicts occasionally occur. In the event that you cannot be at practice, you must clear it with the coach! Not showing up without checking in/calling - will not be tolerated. Injuries need to be cleared by a medical practitioner. In the event of long-term outside commitments which interfere with practicing or competition please contact the coach to arrange for accommodations. Unexcused absences may result in consequences relating to eligibility for competition. Plan ahead! 5. GOALS OF TRAINING Improvement ALWAYS (Self/Team improvement, Health improvement, improvement in practice!) Team Building! To embody enjoyment and enthusiasm! Improve our CCS place (both boys and girls)

2012 Meet Schedule *VARSITY ONLY* ---------------------------------------------------------Date

9/08 9/11 9/29 10/06 10/09 10/18 10/20 10/27 11/10

Day

Saturday Tuesday Saturday Saturday Tuesday Thursday Saturday Saturday Saturday

Meet

Earlybird Invitational P.A.L. League Meet 1 Stanford Invitational Del Oro 4000 Invitational P.A.L. League Meet 2 Center Meet 2 Monterey Bay Invitational P.A.L. League Championships C.C.S. Sectional Championships CA State XC Meet

Location

Toro Park, Salinas Half Moon Bay H.S. Stanford Golf Course, Palo Alto Del Oro H.S., Loomis CA Westmoor H.S., Daly City Crystal Springs Toro Park, Salinas Crystal Springs Toro Park, Salinas

Time

10:00am 3:00pm 10:00am 5:00pm 3:00pm 3:00pm 10:00am 10:00am 9:00am

11/26

Saturday

Woodward Park, Fresno

TBA

---------------------------------------------------------All departure times will be approx. 2 hours before scheduled time for event P.A.L. League Meet 1 + Monterey Bay Invite will be School Van All other Team Events will be transported District School Bus

2012 Meet Schedule *NON-VARSITY ONLY* ---------------------------------------------------------Date

9/08 9/15

Day

Saturday Saturday

Meet

Earlybird Invitational Lowell Invitational

Location

Toro Park, Salinas Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Time

10:00am 9:00am

Come watch the Stanford Invitational! Saturday 9/29 @ 10:00am Sequoia Varsity and Top Universities will be competing on Golf Course 10/06 10/09 10/18 10/25 10/27 Saturday Tuesday Thursday Thursday Saturday Del Oro 4000 Invitational P.A.L. League Meet 2 Center Meet 2 Center Meet 3 P.A.L. League Championships Del Oro H.S., Loomis CA Westmoor H.S., Daly City Crystal Springs Crystal Springs Crystal Springs 5:00pm 3:00pm 3:00pm 3:00pm 10:00am

Come watch the C.C.S. Section Championship! Saturday 11/10 @ 9:00am Sequoia Varsity competes against best teams in the Peninsula at Toro Park, Salinas Come watch the C.I.F. CA State Meet! Saturday 11/26 If Sequoia qualifies, meet will be at Woodward Park, Fresno

---------------------------------------------------------All departure times will be approx. 2 hours before scheduled time for event All Team Events will be transported District School Bus

Team Rules, League Rules and General Procedures

1. Do the best you can on every given day. 2. In all dealings with the team, remain positive: if you believe it, others will too and that instills confidence. 3. Show up to practice and meets. Hold yourself accountable. 4. Be on time! Many times cross country practice will take us away from campus. If you cannot be there on time, we wont be there for you. 5. I-Pod use: DO NOT BREAK SCHOOL RULES. I dont want to see them before or after practice. During a meet: only during times in which we are not running. Use them on your own time, not on mine! They are a distraction, a conversation stopper, and when running REMOVE YOUR ABILITY TO LISTEN TO YOUR BODY AND THE WORLD AROUND YOU. League-Wide Rules 5.2.1 5.2.2 5.2.3 5.2.4 5.2.5 5.2.6 5.2.7 5.2.8 5.2.9 5.2.10
(all 17 PAL schools must follow these)

Check with the coach for the course assignment Never run alone during practice Obey all traffic signals and pedestrian rules Stay on sidewalks or to the side of the road Check with the coach upon your return Report all injuries immediately to your coach Do not run in areas not designated by your coach Remember you are representing your high school, not yourself Stay off private property Stay out of the downtown areas, shopping centers and construction areas 5.2.11 Off-limit areas are to be determined by individual schools 5.2.12 Use good common sense

Wild Animal Encounters

Part of the focus of cross country is to train in the environment most suited for the sport; in this case, trails and parks native to San Mateo County. While extremely rare, encounters with wildlife have been known to occur during practices or even competition. Being aware of the wildlife is the easiest way to avoid it. The animals most potentially dangerous to humans are the ones least likely to be seen during the practice time in the afternoon. Ironically, deer in the area, who are nonaggressive, pose a threat as their bounding patterns frequently interact with the trails used by runners. They are the only animal featured here acclimated to human beings - snakes and mountain lions are NOT immediately aggressive or likely to be found in the trails frequented by Sequoia athletes and the public at large.

Black-Tailed Deer
Mule Deer, a common deer of western North America, is found from the western United States south to northern Mexico. It is named for its large mule-like ears. Because of its blacktipped tail, the mule deer is also referred to as the black-tailed deer. The buck (male) is 3 feet (about 1 m) tall at the shoulder and 5 to 6 feet (1.5 to 1.8 m) long. The doe (female) is about two-thirds as large. A buck weighs 125 to 400 pounds (57 to 180 kg); a doe, 100 to 150 pounds (45 to 68 kg). In both sexes the coat is mostly tawny to yellowish-brown in summer and grayish in winter. Antlers, grown only by the buck, are shed in winter. The mule deer has a characteristic bounding gait. Mule deer feed mainly on berries, twigs, grass, and shrubs. They are primarily solitary animals but occasionally gather in herds in winter. Mule deer breed in November.

Rattlesnakes
The most commonly seen rattlesnake in California is the Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, found throughout the state, except the southern deserts. Active day and night (they are cold-blooded, preferring the shade in the daytime hours). Often seen while hiking in undisturbed areas, or on roads at night. These rattlesnakes do not have black and white rings around the tail. Rattlesnakes are important members of the natural community. They will not attack, but if disturbed or cornered, they will defend themselves. Reasonable watchfulness is sufficient to avoid snakebite. Give them distance and respect. Rattlesnakes are almost always defensive, not offensive, when they encounter humans-wanting nothing more than to escape.

Mountain Lions
More than half of California is mountain lion habitat. Mountain lions generally exist wherever deer are found. They are solitary and elusive, and their nature is to avoid humans. Mountain lions are most active at dawn, dusk, and at night. Mountain lions are quiet, solitary and elusive, and typically avoid people. Do not approach a mountain lion. If you encounter a mountain lion, do not run; instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms; throw rocks or other objects. Pick up small children. If attacked, fight back. If a mountain lion attacks, immediately call 911.

What is the P.A.L.?

The P.A.L. stands for the Peninsula Athletic League There are 17 public high schools in the league from South San Francisco all the way to Menlo Park. Listed alphabetically they are: Aragon (San Mateo) [red and black] Burlingame (Burlingame) [red and white] Capuchino (San Bruno) [green and gold] Carlmont (Belmont) [navy and white] El Camino (S. San Francisco) [red and white] Half Moon Bay (Half Moon Bay) [orange, black, white] Hillsdale (San Mateo) [light blue and red] Jefferson (Daly City) [navy and yellow] Menlo-Atherton (Atherton) [burgundy and gold] Mills (Millbrae) [red and gold] Oceana (Pacifica) [navy and white] San Mateo (San Mateo) [orange and black] Sequoia (Redwood City) [purple and white] South San Francisco (S. San Francisco) [blue and white] Terra Nova (Pacifica) [black and gold] Westmoor (Daly City) [forest green and white] Woodside (Woodside) [orange and white] The Peninsula Athletic League was formed into a CCS "Super League" in 1996 with the merging of the North Peninsula League and the Southern Peninsula Athletic League into one basic league encompassing the 17 public high schools in San Mateo County. Sequoia was a member of the SPAL along with teams like Carlmont, Woodside, Menlo Atherton and (the now closed) San Carlos High School teams prior to 1996. The NPL consisted of teams like Westmoor, Half Moon Bay, Terra Nova, El Camino and South San Francisco prior to 1996. In the sport of Cross Country, there are no divisions within the league. Qualifiers to sectionals do so by finishing in the top half of the varsity league at the league championship meet.

What is the C.C.S.?

The C.C.S. stands for the Central Coast Section The Central Coast Section is one of 10 Sections of the California Interscholastic Federation, which has administered athletic programs in public and private high schools throughout the state since its formation in the fall of 1914. 100+ schools are members of the Central Coast Section, which has jurisdiction over schools in five counties--San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey--in a geographic region stretching from Daly City in the north to King City in the south. The CCS offered section-wide competition for the first time in the winter of 1965-66, when boys cross country runners participated in their first events. In the early years, athletes from schools of all sizes competed against one another in section tournaments. That began to change in 1980, when football was split into 3 divisions based on strength of the leagues. Cross Country divisions were created in 1987. Cross Country divisions within CCS exist based on student enrollment at each particular high school site. Sequoia is a member of Division I, with other schools between approx 1,800 students and 3,300 students. There are 24 schools in Division I Other schools in Division I include Bellarmine, Homestead, MenloAtherton, Silver Creek, Gunn, Carlmont, Wilcox, Lynbrook, Los Altos and South San Francisco

Championship Qualifying: PAL League Championships (Crystal Springs XC Course, Belmont) Top 9 teams qualify for CCS, + 6 individuals not on top teams 2. CCS Section Championships (Crystal Springs or Toro Park, Salinas) Top 3 teams qualify for State, + 5 individuals not on top teams 3. California State Meet (Woodward Park, Fresno) 4. Nike Cross Nationals (Portland Meadows, OR) Athletes qualify by invitation or open registration
1.

Final CCS Qualifying Team Past 4 Years *Girls*

2011: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 11 31 34 45 54 61 175 Terra Nova (21:08 12 11 11 11 11 11 F F F F F F 105:36) 19:27 21:02 21:14 21:35 22:18 23:07 115:51) 20:32 22:34 23:45 24:17 24:43 24:48 27:56 114:55) 21:51 22:10 23:22 23:43 23:49 24:24 118:14) 21:43 22:50 23:54 24:20 25:27

Maryann Holliday Dominique Gio Morgan Curley Megan Guillermo Brittany Tang Hannah Kabakoff 182 Sequoia

2010: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 7 32 42 49 52 53 74 2009: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 25 31 41 47 48 61

(23:11 10 09 10 10 09 11 10 F F F F F F F

Gaia Bouchard-Hall Zoe Kriegler-Wenk Alex Bliss Sherry Sanders Theda Knauth Laetitia Chatelain Frances Mylod-Vargos 192 Menlo-Atherton

(22:59 09 12 10 11 12 12 F F F F F F

Brittany Scheuch April Melendez Shayda Abadi Caitlin Kenney Kristy Perez Brigid McCurdy 200 Hillsdale

2008: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 23 31 42 49 55

(23:39 12 12 12 12 11 F F F F F

Tanya Singh Skyler Young Katherine Wright Jazmin Gonzalez Becky Tan

Average Runner Time: 22:43 Average Runner Place: 37th

Final CCS Qualifying Team Past 4 Years *Boys*

2011: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 28 39 62 64 71 85 264 El Camino Joseph Arroyo Gerardo Castro Brandon Ng Juan Lopez Hunter Uniake Ben Urzua 238 Sequoia (17:59 12 10 10 12 12 11 M M M M M M 89:54) 16:44 17:12 18:26 18:34 18:58 19:46 93:23) 17:22 17:58 18:53 19:28 19:42 20:01 20:09 91:38) 17:18 17:32 18:28 18:55 19:25 20:19 91:38) 16:24 18:30 18:41 19:01 19:02 19:09 19:24

2010: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 22 34 53 62 67 72 75 2009: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 25 34 55 68 77 88

(18:41 11 12 11 10 11 11 11 M M M M M M M

Manny Avila Danny Raggio Philip Barron Warren Van Velkinburgh Kevin Hill Chris McCreddin Joel Avitia 259 Westmoor

(18:20 12 12 12 11 11 11 M M M M M M

Ryan Ngo Taylor Rivas Gilbert Suarez Brian Mallari Kurt Ison Gerardo Flores 199 Hillsdale

2008: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 9 40 45 52 53 56 65

(18:20 11 11 11 12 12 11 11 M M M M M M M

Mitchell Lee Samson So Nicholas Moy Raymond Macias-Celest Sean Mitchell Jason Oledan Anthony Quiroz

Average Runner Time: 18:20 Average Runner Place: 48th

Sequoia XC - A Tradition of Excellence

"The History of Sequoia's Cross Country Program"
Cross country running began in England in the early 19th century with a game called Hares and Hounds. In this game, a runner or group of runners (the hares) would lay a "scent" by scattering pieces of paper while following a random course. A second set of runners (the hounds) would then set out in pursuit, trying to follow the paper trail. It soon evolved into its current format between schools of runners. In 1878, cross country running was introduced to the United States as a way to train for summer track and field. Harvard was the first university to incorporate the sport, with other schools following. In 1890, the first intercollegiate meet was held between City College of New York, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University. By the winter of 1890 the "Winter XC Championships" became the United States oldest national championship.

On September 16, 1895, Sequoia High School opened its doors with a total enrollment of 53 students and was the only high school on the Peninsula between Santa Clara and San Francisco. The citizens of Redwood City were motivated by giving students an opportunity to attend Stanford University, which opened in 1891.

Sequoia's Cross Country Program began at a time when many high schools in the Bay Area started to incorporate more running into their sports programs following World War II. Already popular along the East Coast and in the Midwest, cross country along the West Coast grew in participation because of the baby-boom and success of popular American distance runners in the Olympics. Prior to this, distance running in high school was limited to the mile run in track. The two-mile run was added to CA Track & Field in 1965.

In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, high school cross country was nearly non-existent in the Bay Area. In fact it was nearly non-existent on the West Coast! Records show that Southern Section championships (including San Diego County schools, which did not have their own section until 1960) date to 1926. However, few multi-team invitations were held, due to the lack of high schools offering the sport. Instead,

Sequoia High School during this time had just relocated to its current campus in 1924 (it used to be on Broadway, between Jefferson and Middlefield). After 1924, the campus expanded, bringing in more students from the community, with principal A. C. Argo's contributions. Despite coaching the football and girl's basketball teams, and serving as principal until 1948, Argo and Sequoia had yet to field a cross country team.

most races were dual meets, oftentimes scheduled to start and conclude on tracks during halftimes of football games.

In the Fall of 1948, a cross country coach named Forrest Jamieson introduced the first "Center Meet" at Chula Vista High School in Southern California. His Center Meets invited schools from all over to compete two to three times each season as a way to measure progress. Coach Jamieson had competed in the very first cross country invitational held in the Northern Coast Section for California in the town of Linden (southeast of Stockton) back in 1935. The NCS stretched from Merced in the south to the Oregon border, and included Sequoia until mid-1965. By then, membership had grown so large that the territory was divided, creating the CCS. As the post-war economic boom accelerated in the late 1940s, more schools opened and more cross country teams sprang forth; Forrest Jamieson's Center Meets flourished. Coach Jamieson returned to Northern California in 1950 intent on pursuing his Master's Degree at Stanford University; by Spring 1952 he was teaching and coaching track at nearby Palo Alto High School. In autumn of that year, Paly had its first cross country team. Throughout the entire Bay Area, only Balboa, Poly (now closed), and Lowell High Schools in San Francisco; Lincoln, and Tech in San Jose; Hayward, Bishop O'Dowd and El Cerrito in the East Bay; and Tamalpais in the North Bay are known to have offered the sport of cross country following World War II. Even Stanford University had no cross country team. Stanford did have a beautiful golf course located midway between San Francisco and San Jose--the perfect venue for a Center Meet.

With the assistance of Jack Weiershauser, then head track coach at Stanford, Jamieson convinced the University to open the golf course each Fall to the local high school harriers. These Peninsula Center Meets

In 1951, Menlo-Atherton opened, and in the spring of 1953, Carlmont opened. Woodside opened in 1958. Carlmont quickly became a distance running powerhouse, with its ideal location set in the rural hills of Belmont and its former military-serving coach Loren Lansberry. The Sequoia Union High Schools were at the forefront of bringing access to cross country, while the other Bay Area high schools began to follow suit by the mid-1950s. In 1954, the North Coast Section (NCS) officially sanctioned the sport of cross country, and on November 20, the first NCS Championships were held. The 1.96-mile course at the Stanford Golf Course was laid out, and it became the site of the NCS Section Championship for 10 consecutive years.

By 1950, Sequoia was one of many public high schools open along the Peninsula. Other schools included Palo Alto in 1898 (Sequoia's rival school until the 1960s), San Mateo in 1902, South San Francisco in 1913 and Jefferson in 1922. In the Fall of 1923, Burlingame High School opened, and in September 1950 Capuchino opened to serve Burlingame, Milbrae and San Bruno as those areas grew.

grew to 1200 participants, eventually overwhelming the golfing community, which kicked kids off their course following the 1963 season. Between 1953 and 1963, the South Peninsula Athletic League hosted Center and League Championship Meets at Stanford Golf Course.

By 1957, Sequoia had its first superstar. Frosh-Soph runner Larry Shade ran the 5th fastest time for any runner on the day at the SPAL Championship - beating his nearest competitor by 30 seconds. Shade covered the 1.94 mile Stanford course in a blazing 10:31, becoming Sequoia's first all-league recipient. At the meet, the varsity

The first record of Sequoia competing in cross country appears in 1954, when it ran in the SPAL Championship Meet (South Peninsula Athletic League) finishing 6th as a team behind Burlingame, Capuchino, Jefferson, Palo Alto and Carlmont but beating Menlo-Atherton, South San Francisco and San Jose Tech. Sequoia Captain John Ashworth was the head of the team, which was primarily self-caoched, while Dick Schulba finished first for the squad in 11:47; 27th overall for the 1.94 mile Stanford course.

team finished 4th overall, while the frosh team finished 2nd to Carlmont by three points. Two weeks later Shade once again impressed, finishing 9th overall at the NCS Sectional Championship and earning first-team all Northern California distinction as one of the top talents in all of the state. By 1958, Hall of Fame soccer coach Mario Mangiola was in charge of the Sequoia XC team which had grown to about 30 runners. Larry Shade continued to dominate, finishing all-league at the SPAL Championship while finishing 1st overall at the NCS Sectional Championship in 10:14, setting a Large School (Group IV) course record at Stanford in the process. Shade was once again named first-team all Northern California. Success struck again in 1962, when senior Dennis Hefner was named all-league, finishing 4th overall at SPAL League Championships. Hefner also finished 7th overall in the large school division of the North Coast Sectional Championships, running the Stanford course in 10:16. As a senior in 1959 Shade was again named all-league for finishing 4th overall at league finals, while finishing 5th overall at sectionals in a personal record of 10:10. He was also a 4:37 miler in track, holding the school record.

The Stanford Golf Course was the peninsula's home for cross country until 1963. In 1964 and 1965 league finals were held on a Belmont Heights course near the College of San Mateo, with the first CCS meet being held at Vasona Park in Los Gatos in 1965. In the 1964 SPAL Championship, Tim Terriberry finished 21st overall, with the Sequoia team placing 7th.

In 1965 Terriberry earned all-leage honors along with teammate Mike Daily after the duo finished 12th and 13th at league championships, only four seconds apart. It marked the first time in school history that two Sequoia athletes earned all-league honors in the same year. Sequoia improved to 5th overall as a team. By 1966, College of San Mateo coach Bob Rush, with the help of Carlmont coach Loren Lansberry found an area of land in the Belmont foothills which eventually became the Crystal Springs XC Course. In

With the departure of Daily and Terriberry, the highlight of 1967 was the sophomore boys team finishing first overall at the SPAL championship. Led by Tom Bales and Jose Cortez, this team beat Carlmont, San Carlos, Woodside and Menlo-Atherton and received the top seed heading into the Region I Championship. With this momentum, the 1968 varsity team finished a close third at SPAL Finals. Senior Jackson Williams, who had been the third Sequoia finisher behind Daily and Terriberry in 1966, joined Tom Bales, Jose Cortez and Joel Stein. Williams and Bales received all-league distinction, while the frosh team also finished third and the JV team second. At the Region 1 meet, Sequoia finished 5th out of 14 schools, with Bales receiving all-Northern California honorable mention. 1969 marked the first (and only year) two Sequoia athletes were named all-Northern California in the same year. Jose Cortez, who ran the 34th fastest time ever recorded on the old 2.25 mile Crystal Springs course finished 28th overall at CCS, while teammates Joel Stein (also honorable mention all-Northern CA) and Greg Patrick finished 32nd and 33rd at the Region II meet, narrowly missing CCS. At League Championships Sequoia finished 3rd out of 8 teams, with Cortez (3rd overall), Stein (11th) and Patrick (14th) all receiving all-league status.

1966, the course measured 2 miles and was the site for the league, region and Central Coast sectional championship. Sequoia, led by its two all-league runners Daily and Terriberry improved to 4th at SPAL Championships, with Daily taking 3rd overall, and Terriberry taking 6th, both making all-league for the second year in a row. Mike Daily went on to finish 3rd overall at the Region I meet one week later, and 13th overall at CCS. With these performances, Daily became the second Sequoia runner to be named first-team all Northern California.

The 1970s began with junior Mark Daniel finishing 15th overall at the SPAL Championship at Golden Gate Park in 1970, with Greg Patrick in 21st. Patrick placed in the top 40 at the Region II meet a week later. For Daniel this marked the first of two all-league seasons. Frank Cortez finished 9th overall for Junior Varsity, while Chris Vigil finished 5th overall for the freshmen.

Mark Daniel ended his senior year in cross country by placing all-league for the second straight season. Top performances at SPAL Championships included Daniel (16:47), Craig Virgil (17:02), Bob Cooper (17:12) and sophomore Manfred Maier (17:42). In total, seven athletes broke 19 minutes at the meet. At the Region II meet Daniel ran 16:13, the school record which stood for over 10 years, finishing 12th overall in the race.

In 1971, the Crystal Springs course was finalized to its current distance of 2.95 miles. Since then it has remained unchanged. Bob Rush, who is considered to be the "parent" of the course, still organizes the Center and Championship Meets at the course and is frequently in attendance. All Sequoia course records date back to this year.

The 1972 season produced one of the fastest teams in school history. At the SPAL Finals, nine athletes ran 18:41 at Crystal Springs or better. Manfred Maier narrowly missed all-league when he finished 18th overall in 16:36. Frank Cortez ran 16:47. Dan Keller, Luis Sandoval and Leroy Rosing all ran faster than 17:38. Moises Garza, Doug Hambly and Frank Boyer all ran in the 18 minute range. The team time of 88:22 stands as the third-fastest performance at Crystal Springs in Sequoia history.

In 1973, three athletes broke 17 minutes at SPAL Championships. Luis Sandoval (16:42), Dan Keller (16:52), and Manfred Maier (16:53) finished hard in a fast field with the top 10 finishers all running 16:12 or better. Sandoval missed all-league by only four places. 1973 also marked the first year that Sequoia fielded a female athlete in cross country. Christine Sakelarios ran under the freshman-boys division and was named all league for her performance of 18:43 at the first Center Meet. In 1978, Nick Sakelarios once again improved his time to 17:07, while brother Angelo arrived as a freshman to help a young core group of Sequoia runners. Sophomore Karen Wolfe earned all-league honors by finishing 14th overall for the varsity girls division. By 1977, the arrival of freshman Nick Sakelarios, who finished third overall in the freshman boys race at SPAL Championships in 17:36, put Sequoia back on the map after three down years.

In 1979, Sequoia finished fourth overall in league, led by allleague junior Nick Sakelarios (17:19), senior Russ Henderson (17:35) and junior Erwin Mainetti (17:49). Sophomore Angelo Sakelarios placed first-overall for the sophomore boys race with a winning time of 16:56. This meet put Sequoia back in contention. Nick Sakelarios improved his time to 16:32 at the Region II Championship the next week.

In 1981, Angelo Sakelarios and Mike Bohn started off the year well, placing as the third and fifth overall finishers at the first Center Meet. Bohn then set the school-record at Crystal Springs when he clocked 16:10 at Center Meet 3. Senior Martin Kennemer also performed well, yet Sequoia finished short of defending their 2nd overall finish from the year before. Junior female Kirsten Calegari qualified all-league with her standout time of 19:16 at the Region II meet, finishing 8th overall-- placing top 50 at CCS one week later. 1982 marked the emergence of sophomore Stan Carroll, who finished all-league in 15th place at PAL Championships-- running a

In addition, 1980 was also the year senior Karen Wolfe finished 3rd overall for girls varsity, bringing the all-league total to an astounding 5 runners. Wolfe went on to finish 6th overall at the Region II meet, 7th overall at CCS and an amazing 19th overall at the Northern California Championships. With a school-record time of 18:38 at the NorCal Championships, Wolfe ran the 51st fastest time ever recorded at Crystal Springs (to date in 1980). Named honorable mention all-Northern California, Wolfe became the final recipient of the distinction thus far for Sequoia.

1980 was a pivotal year for Sequoia XC. With a team of fast runners both young and old, Sequoia finished 2nd overall in league -beating M-A, Menlo, San Carlos and Woodside; losing only to Carlmont. Brothers Angelo and Nick Sakelarios finished 4th and 8th respectively, at 16:45 and 17:03. Juniors Martin Kennemer (11th) and Erwin Mainetti (14th) ran 17:36 and 17:57, while the final Sequoia scorer Brian Grey placed 17th in 18:07. The final two varsity runners, Michael Hudson and Matt Hassett both finished in the top 20 overall. Sequoia finished the day having scored only 54 points. Sophomores Ron Marin (17:25) and Mike Bohn (17:58) also performed well for the Cherokees.

season best of 16:27 at Center Meet 3. With the addition of Aragon, San Mateo, Burlingame, Mills and Capuchino to the league championship, Sequoia dropped to 10th place as a team, lacking depth behind Carroll.

By the middle of the '80s successes included Robert Roldan running 17:58 at Center Meet 3 in 1983, and Linden Hsu coming close to the 18 minute barrier, running 18:09. In fact, by the third Center Meet in 1984, runners David Ayer (18:12), James Chaney (18:21), Chris Strunck (18:50), John Bartok (18:52) and Linden Hsu (18:55) all finished under 19 minutes in the same race-- the final time a Sequoia team would accomplish this feat for more than a decade. The end of the decade was highlighted by the Morales brothers; Ramon Morales ran 18:48 in 1985, while brother Arnold ran 18:06 in 1987. Both Arnold Morales and Ricardo Alfonzo (18:05) finished near the top that season. As a team, Sequoia had also taken a hit: the school finished no better than 8th for the remaining years of the decade.

The 1990s began with a resurgence of faster times, coming from the girls team. In 1990 Lamaia Hoffman ran a season-best of 21:26, qualifying for CCS. The boys also began to take the team more seriously, once again finishing 8th overall in league.

By 1993, Sequoia was competing well at major invitationals like the Crystal Springs Invite and was still seeing success from female athletes. Sophomore Amy Galvin emerged as one of the better runners in league, qualifying for CCS with a time of 20:09, while coach Ed Riley took the helm of the program, a position he would have for more than 12 years. 1994 welcomed freshman Ryan Morris, who led the way for a host of new, young talent. Amy Galvin once again qualified for CCS, running 20:36 and finished 10th overall in Division III, while sister Kelly appeared capable running 22:40. In 1995, both Amy and Kelly Galvin qualified for CCS, while the boys continued to grow.

In 1996, now junior Ryan Morris (18:10) qualified for CCS, while senior Kelly Galvin did well for the girls, running 22:10. Morris, Steve Hamrick and sophomore Ingomar Weber all ran under 20 minutes consistently that year for the Cherokees.

By 1997, Ryan Morris (17:41), Vlademar Barriga (18:17), Jason Hughey (18:39) and Tony Salto (19:02) all ran brilliantly at PAL Finals, helping Sequoia finish 11th out of 17 schools. The newly expanded league added Westmoor, Terra Nova, Jefferson, El Camino and South San Francisco. Sequoia fell just behind Carlmont, but was able to beat Woodside. The team had once again found success.

In 1998 the team improved to 9th out of 17 schools. Led by junior Vlademar Barriga (17:50) who finished 31st overall in league, and senior Ingomar Weber (18:02). 1998 was also the debut of Zoey Cronin, who ran a season-best 22:04 at Center Meet 3.

With the departure of Anderson, Tom Hummel led the boys team in the year 2000 with am improvement to 18:12, qualifying for CCS. With a coaching change in 2004, the Cherokee cross country teams were poised for improvement. Led by upper-classmen Andrew Hutchinson (18:36), Christer Holm (18:46), and Leo Salto (19:04) Sequoia returned to 12th place at PAL Championships.

In the 1999 season, soccer star and 2-mile record holder Kevin Anderson joined the team. In the 2nd Center Meet, Anderson ran Crystal Springs in 16:49, finishing 1st overall for the boys varsity. By PAL Championships Sequoia finished 6th as a team, with Anderson earning all-league honors in 4th place overall improving to 16:24. Junior Mike Gonzalez (18:21), senior Vlademar Barriga (18:58), junior Luis Cardiel (19:58), and sophomore Tom Hummel (20:39) helped Sequoia beat Woodside, Carlmont, Aragon, Mills and San Mateo -- qualifying for CCS as a team as one of the fastest squads in over a decade. Anderson went on to place 13th overall at CCS for Division II.

In 2005, senior Christer Holm (17:45) and sophomore Matt Hunter (18:26) helped Sequoia repeat as 12th place finishers, while the addition of a young female squad bolstered Sequoia to the 6th place spot for girl's frosh-soph. Sophomore Katie Enriquez finished 33rd overall for girls varsity, narrowly missing CCS with a time of 21:12. The years 2006 and 2007 saw the development of Chris Hunter and Katie Enriquez as they both qualified for CCS as seniors. In 2007

2009 was another step toward the top. After a mediocre finish in 2008 with 8 varsity runners, the team expanded to 21 and found success with a young, enthusiastic coach. Manuel Avila, a sophomore who played football the previous year, joined the team and qualified for CCS with a time of 17:47. Junior Danny Raggio, sophomore Kevin Hill, freshman Josh Pitkofsky, and sophomore Jesse Boyle all ran under 19 minutes. Senior Brittney Dehoyos and freshman Gaia Bouchard-Hall both qualified for CCS with times of 21:45 and 21:48 respectively. The CCS qualifiers saw even more improvement, with Avila running 17:37 and Bouchard-Hall running 21:15 two weeks following the league meet.

Hunter ran 18:41, with Enriquez at 21:27, finishing in 59th and 21st place overall respectively at PAL Championships.

2010 also saw the first CCS-qualifying girls team. Led by an extraordinary all-league effort by sophomore Gaia Bouchard-Hall in 20:01; depth from freshman Zoe Kriegler-Wenk (21:44), sophomore's Sherry Sanders (23:07) and Alex Bliss (23:45), and junior Laetitia Chatelain (23:26) helped the team finish 8th overall at league championships and qualify for CCS for the first time in school history. Bouchard-Hall was named honorable-mention all San Mateo County for her effort during the season.

2010 was a remarkable advance, carried by two complete-team efforts. The team of 35 runners had its best season in over a decade. Junior Manuel Avila once again led the varsity squad, improving to 16:53. Five athletes joined Avila under 19 minutes, with senior Danny Raggio (17:17) consistently second on the team. The arrival of freshman Ty Dewes (18:56) and the emergence of Philip Barron (18:28) made a major difference. The Sequoia boys qualified as a team to CCS, improving to 9th out of 17 at PAL Championships.

2011 was a breakthrough year, producing the fastest Sequoia teams to date. With an astounding 13 runners under 19 minutes for the boys, and with the top five girls all under 21:08 Sequoia produced its greatest finish at League Championships in school history, placing 6th overall for the boys and 4th overall for the girls. Both teams again qualified for CCS, the first time that either team had ever qualified backto-back -- and in the process, supported the largest squad yet with 50

During the 2011 season both varsity teams set school records for the fastest squads in school history. The boys followed the example set by Manuel Avila when he ran Crystal Springs in 16:38, with Kevin Hill (17:05), Philip Barron (17:05), Nickie Pucel (17:16) and Ty Dewes (17:24) completing a team spread of under a minute between all varsity athletes. The girls were equally as close. Junior Mariah Driver (20:06) led a girls team with Gaia Bouchard-Hall (20:21), Julia Pokorny (20:49), Zoe Kriegler-Wenk (21:06) and Sophia Bolte (21:08) breaking the fastest team time in school history. The season was unprecedented in many ways, and brought the program closer to the top than ever before. With a history filled with sectionally-recognized teams, and runners awarded all-county and all-Northern California distinction-recent success and past success would indicate that Sequoia Cross Country has a lot of momentum moving forward. With a base of veterans and young runners, there is no telling how good this program might become in the future and how far it will carry this legacy of excellence.

athletes on the team. At PAL championships, 40 out of 45 active runners achieved season-bests.

Sequoia All-Northern California XC Selections

The Northern California Track & Field Association began selecting All-NorCal teams with the start of the sport in the NCS in 1954. There are 22 members on each All-NorCal team with a Runner Of The Year award also given. Prior to 1962, criteria was based on finish at the NCS meet. By 1965 the All-NorCal team was selected by a panel of coaches. About 100 athletes were consistently considered for the 22 spots. Those selected were given awards by Track & Field News and were invited to a NorCal banquet for College, JC & HS athletes for recognition. Areas considered are from the six sections comprising Northern California in the C.I.F., including the Central Coast, North Coast, Northern, Oakland, Sac-Joaquin and San Francisco sections. Criteria for consideration now consists of section and state meet performance for runners from these areas. Prior to the State Meet in 1987, All-NorCal was the highest distinction one could receive.

Sequoia has been represented by the following athletes: 1. Larry Shade: First Team All-NorCal 1957/1958 9th overall at NCS in 1957 / 1st overall at NCS in 1958, setting a Large School (Group IV) course record at Stanford. 2. Mike Daily: First Team All-NorCal 1966 13th overall at CCS - 23rd fastest time ever recorded at original Crystal Springs course: 2 miles. 3. Tom Bales: Honorable Mention All-NorCal 1968 36th fastest time ever recorded at Crystal Springs old course: 2.25 miles. 4. Joel Stein: Honorable Mention All-NorCal 1969 182nd fastest time ever recorded at Crystal Springs old course: 2.25 miles / 11th overall in league 1969. 5. Jose Cortez: Second Team All-NorCal 1969 28th Overall at CCS - 34th fastest time ever recorded at Crystal Springs old course: 2.25 miles. 6. Karen Wolfe: Honorable Mention All-NorCal 1980 19th Overall at NorCal Championships - Sequoia School Record 18:38, 51st fastest time ever recorded at Crystal Springs at the time.

Sequoia All-League XC Selections

Since the creation of the SPAL/PAL in 1953, the top 15 finishing varsity athletes from the Championship Meet from the schools representing the league have received all-league distinction at the end of each season. Sequoia has been represented by the following athletes: Larry Shade 1957, 1958, 1959 Dennis Hefner 1962 Tim Terriberry 1965, 1966 Mike Daily 1965, 1966 Jackson Williams 1968 Tom Bales 1968 Jose Cortez 1969 Joel Stein 1969 Greg Patrick 1969 Mark Daniel 1970, 1971 Nick Sakelarios 1979, 1980 Angelo Sakelarios 1980, 1981 Martin Kennemer 1980 Erwin Mainetti 1980 Mike Bohn1981 Stan Carroll1982 Kevin Anderson 1999 Christine Sakelarios 1973 Karen Wolfe 1978, 1980 Kirsten Calegari 1981 Amy Galvin 1994, 1995 Gaia Bouchard-Hall 2010

Sequoia Top 30 at Crystal Springs *Girls* (All-Time)

Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Name Karen Wolfe Christine Sakelarios Karen Wolfe Christine Sakelarios Christine Sakelarios Karen Wolfe Karen Wolfe Karen Wolfe Kirsten Calegari Karen Wolfe Kirsten Calegari Kirsten Calegari Gaia Bouchard-Hall Mariah Driver Amy Galvin Mariah Driver Gaia Bouchard-Hall Karen Wolfe Gaia Bouchard-Hall Kirsten Calegari Gaia Bouchard-Hall Gaia Bouchard-Hall Amy Galvin Amy Galvin Gaia Bouchard-Hall Mariah Driver Amy Galvin Kirsten Calegari Julia Pokorny Amy Galvin Time 18:38 18:43 18:43 18:45 18:50 18:51 19:01 19:13 19:16 19:18 19:42 19:59 20:00 20:06 20:09 20:12 20:20 20:21 20:21 20:31 20:31 20:32 20:36 20:39 20:40 20:44 20:45 20:49 20:49 20:52 Meet NorCal Championships Center Meet 1 Region 2 Championship Center Meet 3 SPAL League Finals CCS Finals Center Meet 3 Center Meet 2 Region 2 Championship SPAL League Finals Center Meet 3 Center Meet 2 Center Meet 2 CCS Finals CCS Finals PAL League Finals PAL League Finals Region 2 Finals Center Meet 3 CCS Finals Center Meet 3 PAL League Finals CCS Finals Crystal Springs Invite PAL League Meet 2 Center Meet 3 CCS Finals Center Meet 1 CCS Finals Center Meet 2 Date 11/22/80 10/11/73 11/13/80 10/25/73 11/9/73 11/18/80 10/30/80 10/23/80 11/4/81 11/6/80 10/29/81 10/22/81 10/21/10 11/12/11 11/17/93 11/3/11 11/3/11 11/15/78 10/28/10 11/24/81 10/27/11 11/4/10 11/16/94 10/9/93 10/5/10 10/27/11 11/11/95 10/15/81 11/12/11 10/20/94

Sequoia Top 30 at Crystal Springs *Boys* (All-Time)

Rank 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Name Mike Bohn Mark Daniel Mike Bohn Kevin Anderson Dan Keller Stan Carroll Stan Carroll Nick Sakelarios Mike Bohn Nick Sakelarios Dan Keller Manfred Maier Manny Avila Luis Sandoval Stan Carroll Angelo Sakelarios Manny Avila Mark Daniel Frank Cortez Kevin Anderson Kevin Anderson Manny Avila Dan Keller Angelo Sakelarios Manfred Maier Nick Sakelarios Manny Avila Angelo Sakelarios Nick Sakelarios Nick Sakelarios Time 16:10 16:13 16:20 16:24 16:25 16:27 16:28 16:30 16:31 16:32 16:34 16:36 16:38 16:42 16:44 16:45 16:46 16:47 16:47 16:47 16:49 16:50 16:52 16:52 16:53 16:53 16:53 16:57 16:59 17:00 Meet Center Meet 3 Region 2 Championship Region 2 Championship PAL League Finals Center Meet 3 Center Meet 3 Center Meet 2 Center Meet 3 Center Meet 2 Region 2 Championship Center Meet 1 SPAL League Finals CCS Finals SPAL League Finals Center Meet 1 SPAL League Finals PAL League Finals SPAL League Finals SPAL League Finals CCS Finals Center Meet 2 Center Meet 3 SPAL League Finals Center Meet 3 SPAL League Finals Center Meet 3 Center Meet 2 Region 2 Championship Center Meet 1 Center Meet 2 Date 10/29/81 11/19/71 11/4/81 11/4/99 10/25/73 10/28/82 10/21/82 10/30/80 10/22/81 11/13/79 10/11/73 11/9/72 11/12/11 11/9/73 10/14/82 11/6/80 11/3/11 11/12/71 11/9/72 11/13/99 10/21/99 10/27/11 11/9/73 10/30/80 11/9/73 10/25/79 10/21/10 11/4/81 10/16/80 10/23/80

Who is Jack Daniels?

(No, not the drink)

Dr. Jack T. Daniels has been involved with cross country for over 35 years, training every level: from college to the Olympic Games. He has coached 30 individual DIII NCAA National Champions, eight NCAA National Team Champions, and 130 All-Americans. He was named the NCAA DIII Women's Coach of the Century, and was a three-time NCAA National Coach of the Year. He has coached five Olympians in men's and women's distance events (including Jim Ryun, the last American to hold the world record in the mile run), in addition to two sub-2:10 marathoners. He was named the "World's Best Coach" by the magazine Runner's World. Daniels swam competitively in high school and college, and shot on the University of Montana's rifle team. While serving in the Army in Korea, he entered a triathlon: pistol shooting, swimming and running. "I won the thing, even though I finished last in the run. I had never run a mile in my life up to that time," Daniels recalls. "For the first six weeks of my running career, I was asked -- made -- to run eight to ten times 400m, pretty much as fast as I could, on a cinder track, with spikes, five days a week. And this was with zero previous run training. I learned to really hate running," he says. "But I did have a break from imposed training for a few weeks and just went to a nearby golf course and ran easily around. It felt so good." Daniels helped the U.S. win a team silver medal at the 1956 Olympics for the modern pentathlon, and returned four years later when they won the bronze. Intrigued by running and how to train the body for it, he studied the physiology of sport at Royal Gymnastics Central Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, determined to learn everything he could so he could improve as a runner. At his best, Daniels was a 4:44 miler and 2:58 marathoner. Now 75 years old, Daniels all-around athleticism helped him medal in the pentathlon, throw a discus 135 feet, climb a 20-foot rope in less than 6 seconds ("with

arms only"), paddle in a war canoe competition in Canada and to be "quite accomplished in horseshoe pitching and archery." In addition to coaching and training, Daniels is an accomplished author, having written four books on running, including his most famous title Daniels' Running Formula. He has had over 50 articles published in scientific journals, and also works as a part of a research program which examines the VDOT values of elite middle and long distance runners (VDOT assesses performance for training). In 1986, Daniels decided he missed college coaching and left his job at Nike. He ended up teaching and coaching for more than 15 years at the State University of New York. "Well, that was the only job I was offered," he says. "I thought I would be there maybe three years." Daniels is as much a psychologist as he is a personal trainer: "To be a good runner, you have to figure out what you should be doing to improve physically. Then, the most important thing psychologically is to focus on the task at hand. That is, I'm going to do my job and not worry about the other people. Before cross country meets I tell my runners, There are people out here you know you're better than. Beat

them. There are people out here who are probably equal to you. Beat all of them because you ran a smart race. And there are most likely some people who are better than you. Beat half of them because they ran stupidly. You'd be surprised how well that works, because they quit
thinking about who they have to beat or where they have to finish, and they start thinking What am I doing? " "The best example of this: I was coaching a guy in Peru. We were at the 5k National Championships in Lima. He comes by in fifth place with five laps to go and says something. I didn't know Spanish yet, so I ask the guy next to me what he said - turns out he asked to drop out. So I told the guy, When he comes around again, tell him its okay if he drops out -- but first he must catch the leaders. Well, he didn't realize it would take three laps to catch them. By the last lap, he caught them, and he's thinking I'm in the lead. And wouldn't you know, he won the darn thing!" Daniels's one singular discovery deserves mention -- the "formula" that's

part of the title of his book Daniels' Running Formula. The formula describes the relationship between the length of an all-out run -- be it 5 minutes or 5 hours, and the percent of the total oxygen capacity you need to complete the run. Amazingly this relationship is the same for all of us. In other words, all runners can do a 60 minute race at roughly 88 percent of their aerobic maximum. The difference is in the numbers. When an elite marathoner is running at 88 percent of their max, it means they are clipping away at 4:40 mile pace. When an average joe is running the same capacity for the same race, it could be at 9:00 minute miles. The average joe has different genetics, training, and experience, among other things. The Daniels formula can accurately predict race pace and training pace, ensuing clarity for any distance. Recently, Dr. Daniels was a guest speaker at the Sports Basement in San Francisco and gave a presentation. Here are some of his notes: 1) No one has all the answers. 2) Athletes are people too. 3) Coach's job is to provide an environment for athletes to succeed. 4) Achieve basic fitness first. 5) Avoid injury. 6) Focus on the task at hand. Ingredients of Success: 1) Inherent Ability (people are not the same). 2) Motivation -- must come from within. 3) Opportunity. 4) Direction. Daniels states: "I truly get as much enjoyment watching a young runner improve their performance, as much as I do seeing one of my runners make it to the Olympics. The road traveled is certainly just as important as the destination because every day along the way is part of a persons never-ending education, and I still feel like I learn just as much from my runners as they learn from me."

Why is Dr. Jack Daniels important? Jack Daniels graduated from Sequoia
High School in 1950. In 2006, he was inducted into the Sequoia Sports Hall of Fame. A two-time all-league selection as a Sequoia swimmer, Daniels became one of America's most distinguished distance running coaches by obtaining degrees from the University Montana, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Wisconsin. Olympic athlete, published author and researcher, decorated teacher, and accomplished trainer; Runner's World named him "World's Best Coach" because he is just that. He is living proof that a Sequoia education can help you make a significant impact later in life.

Help Raise Money for Sequoia Cross Country!

BRING YOUR RECYCLING TO PRACTICE

Plastic Bottles and Aluminum Cans will be collected at practice in what is an easy and efficient way to raise a little money throughout the season. The more you bring, the more you give back to the program.

SEQUOIA ADVERTISING BANNER

Purchasing a 3 x 5 full-color at the start of the year will ensure you get the right audience from September thru June. Your banner will be placed on the Sequoia Track for all football/soccer/lacrosse/ and track events throughout the school year. Cost is $350, a GREAT value.

FAMILY DONATION PROGRAM

Sharing our fundraising letter with Relatives, Parents and Friends goes a long way! Spread the word of our recent success and help the program continue to improve.

JOIN BOOSTERS
The Sequoia Booster Club would love to have you involved. If you have parents or family members interested in helping Sequoia Athletics, than inform them about the Booster Club! Throughout the year they hold an annual Crab Dinner / Auction, and a campus-wide 5k, the Sequoia Stampede.

D U LETime OB
At the California state track championships that day, Fernandez, a senior from Riverbank High School, claimed his place in that pantheon by turning in perhaps the most impressive double in American high school history winning the 1600m run in 4:00.29, then coming back a few hours later to take the 3200m in 8:34.23, a national high school record. His combined time for the two races, converted to their Imperial equivalent of 12:38.9, is almost 15 seconds faster than the previous best turned in twice by Jeff Kimball 34 years ago. Fernandez hadnt planned on such an amazing accomplishment going in. We were looking for something around 4:02, 4:03, he explains. But I was going pretty good [sub-4 pace through three laps] so I kept going. Fernandez stumbled across the line, his legs cramping, and for a while it seemed like he wouldnt even be able to start the second half of his historic double. I had about two hours between races, so I relaxed in the shade, drank some Gatorade and had the trainer massage my legs. In spite of his fatigue in the longer race, Fernandez went through halfway around 4:20, and then, incredibly, picked up the pace. The crowd was really into it, they were cheering like crazy, he says. They were a huge reason for the record. The double finally gave Fernandez the notoriety hed been just missing

BY JIM GERWECK

CALIFORNIA PREP RUNS TO NEW RECORDS

______________________________________________________________

RUNNING ONE SUPERLATIVE RACE is often a lifetime achievement; pulling off two in the same meet, in the span of a few hours, like GERMAN FERNANDEZ did on May 31, can lead to legendary status.
for several years, with a few near-misses in big competitions like the Foot Locker Cross Country Championship (where he was third). Something always seems to happen before a big race, he says. At Foot Locker I was so sick I just stayed in my room before the race trying to recover. Before Arcadia this year I hurt my Achilles running world cross. This fall, hell be running at Oklahoma State University, a destination that wasnt even on his radar when he first began looking at colleges. I just went there to use one of my visits, and fell in love with it Id go there even if I didnt run. Fernandez also hit it off with Cowboys coach Dave Smith. He can take me to the Olympics, German says. He totally earned my trust. His high school coach, John Viscaino, had him on what they call a 3-2-1 workout schedule. Monday German would run an easy 20 minutes in the morning, a speed workout at noon, then 5 miles in the evening. That was followed the next day by a fartlek run in the morning and negative-split runs in the afternoon. The third day was a long run of 10-11 miles. The cycles repeated once again, with a long (13-to-15 mile) run on Sunday. Its repeated cycles of that kind of hard training that makes doubling, even at history-making speeds, possible for someone whos just beginning to tap into some potential that may make a lot more history before hes done.

1977 Deerfield High School, IL.

The G reatest of All Time?
How dominant was Deerfield? We believe that Deerfield's top five could have competed against any top individual from any team. A team who should have placed all five in the top 15 at the state meet. Notable feat: 14:33 3-mile average at the 1977 Lake County Championships with a 72:46 total team time, the Deerfield top-five made it common place to all crack the 15 minute barrier. 1. Todd McCallister 9:07 (14:15 3-mile); 2. Mark McCallister 9:10 (14:22 3-mile); 3. Keith Hampton 9:05 (14:33 3-mile); 4. Tom Stevens 9:12 (14:38 3-mile); 5. Dane Rutstein 9:16 (14:28 3-mile). Five sub 9:15 two-milers! A once-in-a-generation cross country squad, a team so fine it will inspire awe whenever it competes. Kisellus says he has no magic formula. What he does have may be one of the finest high school teams ever. Marc Bloom, Harrier Magazine Founder and implementer of first National XC Ranking System. The training of Deerfield has been something of cross country lore. The Deerfield pack trained as aggressively as any program in US history. Likened to collegiate workouts, Deerfield's level of accountability at practice was legendary. Marc Bloom Our training program is planned so the athlete experiences a gradual adaptation in stress, and in turn it is our hope that our program develops a greater immunity to fatigue. Coach Len Kisellus in the fall Harrier preview On a team like that, everyone's goals and expectations get ratcheted up. In the workouts, people got dragged along, and they got much more out of themselves. Many of the distance runs were really high-quality tempo runs. The second string ended up doing some amazing things that year, like running the 4x800m relay around 7:50. Rich Elliott, Head Cross Country Coach, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois; 67 & 68 Illinois State Two-mile Champion Our top five runners averaged 4:15 for the mile and 9:15 in the two-mile, they were quite a bunch. Coach Len Kisellus, 1981 article Ex-Warrior Champs Keep Winning by Joe Orris

The Perfect Storm

In 1977 a program arrived in Illinois that can be regarded as remarkable and quite possibly the benchmark for all cross country programs. Featuring a top six who averaged 9:21 for two-miles in 1976 Deerfield, Illinois was on the brink of greatness entering the 1977 season. The 1977 Deerfield team would feature a tremendously talented squad that was five years in the making. First you had the twins, Mark and Todd McCallister, who'd been running since they were very young. Their father, Dick McCallister, had been a coach at Proviso West High School and had put together legendary teams in the mid-1960's, teams that dominated in cross country and set national relay records in track. Mark and Todd had grown up around runners. They'd developed strength from years of running. And as a wonderful bonus, they had great talent. Then you had Keith Hampton and Tom Stevens. Both had shocking talent; it was like lightning striking two more times. Keith ended up running 14:33 (despite an injury) and Tom (the following year) would run 14:20 and 4:10. Signs of success then attracted more talent. It seemed every good runner in town wanted to be on this team-Dane Rutstein (15:00), Greg Less (15:05), George Whitten (14:42, in '78), Craig Bauer (14:23 in '79), to name only a few. These were dedicated runners, hard workers, who emerged in the training and got in tremendous shape. Then you add in 2 exceptional coaches in Len Kisellus, the cross country coach, and Bob Fjelstul, the track coach. Bob was a terrific recruiter, very knowledgeable, and brought a lot of passion to the whole program. Len was a veteran coach who knew how to handle runners. With Deerfield returning four varsity scorers from the 1976 Harrier National Championship team head coach Len Kisellus knew the 77 team could be on a collision course with greatness. This team should be far superior to last years great team. But we will have to guard against being too cocky or overconfident. We will also have to guard against individualism, for there will be fierce competition for positions. Coach Len Kisellus As I look back on it, Coach K was the perfect manager for this team, the perfect counterbalance for a group that could be pretty hyper. Len was in his final year of coaching. He'd coached some really good runners in his career. He knew his stuff, and he was savvy. He was good with the kids. He was unflappable. He

didn't feed into the frenzy. Rich Elliott, Head XC Coach, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois; 67 & 68 Illinois State Two-mile Champion Several years after I came to Deerfield I met Dick McCallister and his boys Mark and Todd. The boys were in 5th grade at the time. That summer Dick, and I took the boys to summer age group running meetsgiving us an opportunity to talk about running and about Dick's ideas concerning distance running and competition. Since his Proviso West team won the state several years previously I was more than interested in getting his ideas. The next summer Dane Rutstein joined us at these summer meets. Then Dane, Mark and Todd as 7th graders ran with the freshmen cross country team during dual meets and some practices that we held at Deerfield. That continued the next year until our athletic director said this was not legal even if the other coaches said it was ok with them. The following year Dane ran on the Sophomore team and Mark and Todd ran on the varsity team. This then was the beginning of the their high school careers for this remarkable team. Although Mark, Todd and Dane had some experience in distance running before coming into high school, none of the other boys had ever run before. In several clinic speeches and in his book "The Long Green Line" Joe Newton said that you had to recruit boys for the cross country team and track team since most of the boys coming into high school would not have any experience in these sports. Approximately half of the boys who ended up running cross country as seniors participated in other sports as freshmen such as football, basketball and wrestling. Some of them didn't participate in cross country but then came out for track. It was imperative then that the boys enjoyed their experience as a cross country member and/or distance runner in track. As examples Mark and Todd were on the freshman basketball team, Greg Less also tried out for the team, Tom Stevens played football his freshman year, Keith Hampton swam for four years, Tom Dahlberg wrestled of four years, Bruce Gilbert was on the track team as a freshman running the quarter and half mile but thought cross country was too far and had to be talked into it his sophomore year. We knew that this one class of athletes was special as the cross country season progressed. With the three experienced runners not on the freshman team, that team went undefeated in all dual and invitational meets. Bob Fjelstul, Deerfield Head Track Coach I was always a runner. Running around the yard growing up, running races at the playground, being known as the fastest kid at summer camp. My formal

introduction to distance running came one day while I was still in sixth grade when my father drove me to the local high school and asked the coach if I could join one of the runners on the cross country course. There I was, all of seventy pounds, running along some "big kid" in red Deerfield High School sweats. I remember keeping up with him excitedly while he urged me to hold to a steady pace. My career had begun. The coach, Bob Fjelstul, reached an agreement with my dad and allowed me to run with his freshman team in workouts and as a non-scorer in meets over the following two years. I was hooked. While other kids were at home eating cookies and watching re-runs, I was already learning the ropes from high schoolers. As it turned out, Coach Fjelstul lived a block over from the McCallisters and it was soon that we had our first encounter. I recall running with the age groupranked twins, Mark and Todd, for the first time when I was only eleven. We ran about a mile from my house to a nearby golf course, looped around for a few miles, and then headed home. How cool it was to cut through people's backyards with such disregard! How humbling it was to be left in the dust during that last half mile dash back to my house! No hard feelings, though; we became friends. I began running with the McCallister's from their home near Coach Fjelstul's. They had medals and posters and Track & Field News magazines all over the place, and they had what must have been hundreds of race t-shirts folded up tidily on shelves in their basement. The place seemed like a shrine to running. Aside from running with the Deerfield freshmen and the McCallister twins those years, I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to attend a summer cross country camp sponsored by Michigan State University in East Lansing. Though only a junior high student, I was already familiar with running at the high school level. What was different and most incredible for me was hanging out on a college campus for two weeks each August. We ran three times a day for an average of 20 to 25 miles a day!!! There was a "self-motivation day" where guys were going out and logging 85 miles from 6am to 9pm. I ran 52...and I was twelve years old. One of the coaches asked the runners where the capital of high school cross country was. York HS in Illinois, he said, matter-offactly. Ahh! But that was all to change in a few short years. Ironically, this very experience was helping to lay the groundwork for the Deerfield Dynasty...for I had learned to run at the high school level on a college campus while still in junior high. So much credit goes to the Deerfield coach, Bob Fjelstul, who took me under his wing those early years. He taught me and others to set goals and to exceed them.

He included me as a 4' 6" kid in the toughest interval and hill workouts. He familiarized me with racing tactics, such as accelerating around an opponent's blind spot on a wooded course or after the crest of a hill. Most important were the words of encouragement which "Fez" always provided. Typically, he would preface a discussion about times he thought I might someday be running with the phrase "Dane, there's no doubt in my mind that...." How powerful a motivating tool! "No doubt in my mind!!!" The coach believes in me, so it will happen. Looking back, I truly believe that so much of what made Deerfield a predestined winner is owed to Bob Fjelstul and his ability to convince us that there was no doubt that we would perform the way he envisioned. And, lest there be any uncertainty, his vision was always lofty. Now, almost 40 years after having first met Coach Fjelstul, I am not sure whether it was our God-given talent or his ability to motivate that really made the difference at Deerfield. I think we're happy to call it a combination of both. Nonetheless, if there was ever a doubt in anyone's mind as to the raw talent that Deerfield possessed in those years, I would suggest a glimpse at the results of a freshman cross country meet from 1973. The course is the dreaded Crystal Lake Invitational, undisputedly the hilliest course in all of northern Illinois and the opening meet of each season for many teams including Deerfield. The race begins in a valley and proceeds straight up a hill that instantly separates the wheat from the chaff. The course shows no mercy through its rolling terrain until the final quarter mile downhill to the finish where the 'rich only get richer'. On that particular day in September of 1973, the Deerfield freshman squad won handily, led by 3rd and 6th place finishers Bill Hayward and Bruce Gilbert. More significantly, what others ignored at their own peril was the appearance of three non-scoring athletes finishing 1-2-3 that day, listed as running for "Deerfield Junior High", and placing a full twenty seconds to a minute ahead of the 'official' freshman winner. These first three junior high runners were none other than Todd McCallister, Mark McCallister, and Dane Rutstein. Combined with true freshman standouts Bill Hayward and Bruce Gilbert, a dynasty was born that day. Eventually, with the addition of Keith Hampton, Greg Less, and Tom Stevens in the coming years, these runners would become the finest prep cross country team ever assembled. As Coach Fjelstul might have stated, "No doubt in my mind..." Dane Rutstein, Deerfield Varsity Runner.

The Season
The Deerfield streak began the beginning of the 1976 season when the team vowed to win the Illinois State Championship. As head coach Len Kisellus

stated, "We should have won the title in 1975, that loss fueled our fire and we wanted the title in 1976 because we knew we could win it." 9/10/77 Crystal Lake Invite: Opening the season at the Crystal Lake Invitational, Deerfield dominated the hilliest and most dreaded course in Northern Illinois, winning with 21 team points and a 10 second 1-5 spread. Deerfield defeated Fremd, the eventual 3rd place team at the 77 State Championships. Individual Placers: 2. Mark McCallister 15:36; 3. Todd McCallister 15:36; 4. Keith Hampton 15:36; 5. Tom Stevens 15:39; 7. Dane Rutstein 15:46. 9/17/77 Proviso West Invite: Featuring 23 teams the Proviso West Invitational is a true test of team strength. A meet which honored Todd and Mark McCallisters father and former Provico West coach Dick McCallister with the McCallister Cup. Todd and Mark tied for first place in 15:10 to claim top honors with both receiving the prestigious award honoring their father. Tom Stevens came in 5th with 15:25, Keith Hampton 6th in 15:26 and Dane Rutstein 8th in 15:38. Still very healthy, beat rival-team Thornridge (5th later that year in State) by a dual meet-like score of 22-130! 9/24/77 Gordon Tech (Chicago) @Deerfield: A dual meet against a tough Gordon Tech the team competed without Greg Less or Todd McCallister and still won 24-33. Keith Hampton won in 14:51 with Dane Rutstein second in 14:59, Mark McCallister 4th and Tom Stevens 5th. Dane Rutstein recalls: This meet was on our home course, in my recollection, the only scare we had all season: Todd Mcallister was not running, Greg Less is nowhere to be found in the results, and I had to pull my fair share as 5th man moving all the way up to 2nd. Gordon Tech had three excellent runners, each capable of breaking up our top 5, and without all of our studs on the line the outcome was not a certainty. We prevailed 24-33. According to my calculations Gordon Tech must have placed 3-6-7-8-9 to our 1-2-4-5-12 to get 24-33. That was as close as anyone came to us all year. Think about it: we had just scored less points in a 23 team invitational the weekend before at Proviso west!!! Kudos to Gordon Tech for giving us heart palpitations! I remember being scared as hell that our unbeaten streak might end that day---ignominiously, carelessly, unexpectedly. We dodged a bullet, and our guys showed true depth against a team Gordon Tech squad that would go on to capture 7th downstate in November. I never had an ounce of anxiety over our team winning any other meet that season other than that day. 10/1/77 Illiana Classic (Dolton, IL): Long before the Washington/Oregon Borderclash was the Ill-Iana Classic, an Indiana verses Illinois border-war. The

77 event featured the Chuck Koeppen coached Carmel Greyhounds who were the top team out of Indiana. Deerfield dominated over Carmel with all five varsity scorers in the top 15 places. 1 Todd McCallister 14:47; 2 Keith Hampton 14:49; 8 Mark McCallister 14:57; 14 Tom Stevens 15:06; 15 Dane Rutstein 15:08. Carmel was a distant second in the quasi-State meet atmosphere. Dane Rutstein recalls: I don't remember any competition whatsoever; all I remember is a sleepy, forever bus ride to somewhere far south of Chicago, listening to Keith Hampton drone on with these endless jokes that took everyone's mind off of the race. When we were warming up I overheard the telltale muttering "Oh no, Deerfield's here!" The biggest race of the year thus-far had been won before we even peeled off our sweats! 10/8/77 Crete-Monee Pow-wow: Deerfield won four of the seven flights, predictably, showing their depth past the 1st and 2nd man positions: 6th flight winner Greg Less (15:52); 5th flight winner Dane Rutstein (15:47); 4th flight winner Tom Stevens (15:30); 3rd flight winner Keith Hampton (15:21). The team won with 16 points to defend their 1976 team championship. Tom Stevens recalls: I loved the Pow Wow because it was like running on a motocross course in crappy weather. I loved the rutted trails, muddy, sloppy course and going head to head with fellow 4th men from other teams. I was bigger and stronger than most of the guys so I was able to power my through the wind and slop to win that flight. 10/15/77 Lake County Meet: Deerfield won handily, going 1-2-3-6-7. Dave Giles of Highland Park cracked the Deerfield top 5 placing 5th in 14:45; he eventually got 16th at state in 14:44.The total team time 72:46 was a national record for 3-mile total team time averaging 14:33.2 per runner. Individual results: 1. Todd McCallister 14:15; 2. Mark McCallister 14:22; 3. Dane Rutstein 14:28; 6. Greg Less 14:49; 7. Tom Stevens 14:52; 10. Dan Schwartz. 10/22/77 North Division Meet of Central Suburban League @ Deerfield High School: While cross country times are subjective and questionable there are meets which stand alone as benchmarks over certain distances. In Illinois, the 2.9 mile Detweiller home course stands as the benchmark for over 40 years of excellence. With the entire team healthy for the first time all season Deerfield racked 15 points and a 16 second 1-5 spread to claim the Divisional Championship. The team averaged 14:19 over the 2.9 mile course, surely one of the fastest 2.9 mile averages over any difficulty in US history. Todd McCallister won in a new

course record 14:14 with twin brother Mark McCallister second in 14:16, Tom Stevens placed 3rd in 14:17, Dane Rutstein placed 4th in 14:19 and Greg Less placed 5th in 14:30. George Whitten finished in 13th in 14:57 and teammate Dan Schwartz rounded out the top seven with 15th place in 15:04. Dane Rutstein recalls: With a healthy Hampton we would have averaged 14:17 per man no doubt, not even counting Greg Less (a 15:00 man in his own right). This meet comes the weekend before the District- Sectional-State Meet buildup. The places of the top four cluster were not determined until the final 100 yard sprint "turning off the bridge." 11/12/77 State Meet @ Detweiller Park (Peoria, IL): Held at the legendary Detweiller Park 3.0 miles course, flat, gentle upgrade towards finish makes it deceptively tough to kick it home. Detweiller had few major turns, lots of long straights and an opening "cavalry charge" start of almost 600 yards. I do remember one small moment that really struck me. It came during their pre-race ritual. These runners ran in the mornings and that also included the morning of the State Meet, where they would get up early and run 3 miles easy. Except easy for them was anything but. In that morning run, a few hours before the State Meet, we got out there and pretty soon were all running sub-6 minute miles, and I thought, Holy s---, here goes their race! But it didn't phase them at all. These runners were just so full of run. Rich Elliott, Head Cross Country Coach, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois Deerfield entered the race with some odds stacked against them with Mark McCallister, the teams #2 man dropping out as a result of an injury sustained in the Sectional Championships. Yet, the team responded by showing the true depth of their pack as the team placed three runners under 14:40 for 3-miles. Todd McCallister finished in 14:21, Keith Hampton finished in 14:33, Tom Stevens in 14:38, Dane Rutstein 15:00, Greg Less in 15:05, and Craig Bauer in 15:32 for a team total of 71 points. Looking back Tom Stevens recalls the state meet: Of course my favorite race of 1977 was the state meet. I felt great going into it and hoped for a high finish, top 25 or so. I remember feeling strong the entire race and hammering the final straightway to take 13th place much better than I had hoped for. I was ecstatic and I think Coach K was also. The pressure had been on all year and we came through crushing all comers even without Mark McCallister who had dropped out after the first mile. It was disappointing for Mark to drop out and I felt bad for him. It was also secretly disappointing to me because I thought I could beat

him outright for 3rd spot. I can say this 33 years after the fact! Some teams would have caved in under the pressure of being expected to win the entire season and then losing one of our top runners but we thrived on it and rose to the occasion. Overall it was a great day for our team and I feel proud to have been a part of it. Over 1976 and 1977 we were undefeated and rolled up victories over 400 teams including all meets and invitationals. Once again we were named National Champion and I feel we were one of the best if not the best team in high school cross country history.

A Look Back
On every team and in every program there exists an "anchor", the most consistent runner on the team. The "anchor" for the first super-team Deerfield, Illinois own Dane Rutstein shares his insight, experiences, and story about what it meant to be a member of the nations first super-team.
By Dane Rutstein It was a few summers ago that each of us was asked to recall "our fondest memory" of running cross country at Deerfield during the national championship era of the mid-1970s. Fossilized runners approaching fifty years old, we reminisced over what many still consider the best high school cross country team ever. If we could somehow have bottled our collective "fondest memory" to pass along to future teams, what a heady drink it would prove to be! At Deerfield, we were blessed with a potent combination of talent and discipline and fine coaching and parental support. It was a lot of fun, but I would venture to say that we ran harder workouts than many college teams. We were sharply competitive with each other, especially on long runs. This work ethic trickled down to all team members as they vied for the coveted seventh man spot. The result was a team so deep it enabled us to win meets easily even when our top stars were sidelined with illness or injury. Deerfield was, however, first and foremost a team of thoroughbreds. Twins Todd and Mark McCallister provided us with national caliber speed and mindset: they had been competing under the tutelage of their father and former coach Dick McCallister since elementary school. Their vocabulary was spiced with references to fartlek and cutdowns and Igloi training (after the 1950s Hungarian coach who relied exclusively on interval workouts). To venture out, away from the track, away from the high school course, on a long run of ten miles with the McCallisters was something of an odyssey. To be sure, we would start off

slowly, chatting, easing into the mileage. But there would always come a point when the conversation would just cease, the pace would quicken, the breathing would become focused and purposeful, and what followed would be a buildup from an unstated start to an undetermined finish that invariably simulated race conditions. The whole thing might go sometimes for only three quarters of a mile in the middle of the run and crescendo into a mad sprint to some intersection and then stop, followed by a 4 mile recovery trot home. Or, the buildup might come later in the run and last insanely for a full three miles while you were left to wonder, 'Are we pushing like this all the way back home? Should I conserve or kick?' The elements of surprise pace and uncertain distance toughened us all. This dramatic sibling rivalry between two sub-4:10 milers played itself out in practice, pulling us all along for the ride. No wonder, then, there are photos of us clustered together in races: we were just replicating those wicked training runs...hanging on to the pace until death. Make no mistake, there were others on the team with talent and potential equal to that of the McCallisters. Keith Hampton was a former swimmer who actually was the team's top finisher in the Illinois state meet as a junior. Hampton spent a good part of the senior year injured, although he showed great resiliency by duplicating his time of 14:33 to capture seventh place downstate. On the track later that year Hampton peaked at 4:11 and 9:05 for the mile and two mile. Meanwhile, Tom Stevens didn't even run until his sophomore year (he had played football as a freshman). Stevens was as solid a competitor as they come, capturing 13th in state as a junior. Though considered 'only' our fourth man for that '77 season with 4:12/9:14 track speed as a junior, Tom had impressive stats of 8:56 and 4:08 as a senior, this coming after the core of our team had gone to college. Stevens would ultimately go on to compete in the US Olympic Trials in the steeplechase. These were the thoroughbreds at Deerfield, my teammates, my friends. And my rivals! What was it like being the fifth best runner in the conference or the county, even one of the top ten two-milers in the state, while fighting to be only fourth or fifth man on my very own team? Not too many 9:16 two-milers out there calling themselves fifth man, are there? But personally, I reveled in our team's success. There was hardly any need to anticipate an upcoming meet, hardly any suspense over the results against other teams. It was pretty obvious what would happen on Saturdays when five of the top ten runners in the state set forth from the same locker room every weekday. As described earlier, running with the likes of the McCallisters for four years activated a competitive edge in me, it vaulted us all to an elite mindset as individuals. But for the most part, I

enjoyed cross country much more than track because we were so dominant as a team as well as individuals. Imagine, coming home each weekend with two trophies or medals for running just one race. It's fun to have all that hardware when you are sixteen or seventeen. The Deerfield program could not have worked without the orchestration of head coach Len Kisellus. Coach K was more of an older father figure to many--patient, supportive, soft-spoken. He did all the worrying in the world, though, as the seasons unfolded with the usual injuries and illnesses. Funny thing is, we won the state meet as seniors without Mark McCallister in the race (12 stitches from being spiked the previous week), and we placed 1st through 5th in our conference meet without Keith Hampton. All year long we dominated major invitationals with dual meet-like scores while poor Coach K fretted about the competition. Hell, all the competition was wearing Deerfield on their uniform! Coach K retired in 1977 after those crowning state and national titles. Underclassmen coach Bob Fjelstul remains a truly unheralded but most integral figure behind Deerfield's success. He doubled as head track coach those years, so his influence on us was actually year-round. He spotted young talent among junior high runners and he nurtured and motivated freshmen and sophomores into a dynasty ready to ripen. Bill Hayward, Bruce Gilbert, Keith Hampton, Tom Stevens, Greg Less, and I---all of us---were products of Fjelstul's program. 'Fez' (as he is still known) was an outspoken and youthful complement to Coach K. He was a great coach: he knew the sport, he knew psychology, and he knew us---as runners, as students, as teenagers, inside and out. Bob Fjelstul, in my opinion, provided the intangible guide to Deerfield's success. Assistant coach Rich Elliott was a welcome addition to Deerfield in our senior year. Rich had run an 8:54 two mile in 1968 to win the Illinois state championship. His coach had been none other than Dick McCallister (you guessed it, the McCallister twin's dad). So Rich was really one of us, he ran with us oftentimes, and his presence offered the experience and confidence of a champion. Despite all the competition for spots and bragging rights that went along with 'going downstate', we were really just a bunch of teenage kids having fun. Easy days were easy: there were plenty of days we just ran to one of the guys who lived nearest the school and just ate peanut butter sandwiches. In the summertime we would run over and meet at a park, play softball, and then go run for miles at dusk in our barefeet on the freshly watered golf courses, and then

run home in the dark. Coach Kisellus would treat us to homemade ice cream at his house after some runs, or he would host the legendary "watermelon relays" in August. I remember driving to Wisconsin with the McCallisters to run around Lake Geneva just for kicks (had to be 22 miles or so and we got steaks afterwards). And I remember, too, after a Memorial Day run with Mark and Todd as freshman coming back to their house to learn with them that Steve Prefontaine had died. And speaking of Pre, running was altogether different back then. I bought my first pair of shoes---leather Onitsuka Tigers for $19.95---from a guy named Dick Pond who used to sell at meets from his trailer. Nike had just started with its revolutionary waffle sole. There was no sleek clothing to wick away moisture; we wore baggy red mismatching sweat tops and bottoms that would gain twenty pounds of water in the rain or the slush on long runs. We had a cinder track for five runners with 4:05 to 4:17 mile speed. Frank Shorter had won the '72 Olympic marathon and Jim Ryun still held the world record in the mile. The 'running boom' was just underway. There was no cross-training; you swam in the pool if you were injured, you lifted weights if you cared. You stretched, there was no yoga. And if you ran a road race in the summer or a turkey trot after the season had ended in the fall, it was $15 the day of the race and you got a t-shirt and you knew everyone at the starting line. There were no school websites for posterity, no video, just newspaper clippings and still photos. What we would do for actual footage of our team!!! Perhaps it's just as well: I can still hear clearly the clack-clack-clack-clackof spikes across those few yards of pavement or cinder path that every course had... One final and distinct memory I do have that perhaps best captures the essence of our team comes from the 1977 Illiana Invitational, a meet combining the top teams from Illinois and Indiana. We were simply trotting the course as a warmup and I overheard some other team mutter, "Oh no, Deerfield's here!" And that was that: we won races before we even put on our spikes, before the gun even went off! We won them in the summer by running a thousand miles, we won them by waking up early and running a quick six before school on our own, we won them by lifting weights like madmen and trying to out-benchpress one another after practice. We always had fun as a team, competing with each other, and it paid off. It's a magic feeling to know you are part of an invincible team. One carries that feeling of being a national champion and remembers what it is like to have 'won the race before it is even run', no matter what the endeavor, for the rest of one's life. It does take work and sacrifice and discipline and talent and fun. And luck.

Born To Run
By Christopher McDougall
How do you make anyone actually want to do any of this stuff? How do you flip the internal switch that changes us all back into the Natural Born Runners we once were? Not just in history, but in our own lifetimes. Remember? Back when you were a kid and you had to be yelled at to slow down? Every game you played, you played at top speed, sprinting like crazy as you kicked cans, freed all, and attacked jungle outposts in your neighbors backyards. Half the fun of doing anything was doing it at record pace, making it probably the last time in your life youd ever be hassled for going too fast. That was the real secret of the Tarahumara [native Indians of Mexico]: theyd never forgotten what it felt like to love running. They remembered that running was mankinds first fine art, our original act of inspired creation. Way before we were scratching pictures on caves or beating rhythms on hollow trees, we were perfecting the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain. And when our ancestors finally did make their first cave paintings, what were the first designs? A downward slash, lightning bolts through the bottom and middlebehold, the Running Man. Distance running was revered because it was indispensable; it was the way we survived and thrived and spread across the planet. You ran to eat and to avoid being eaten; you ran to find a mate and impress her, and with her you ran off to start a new life together. You had to love running, or you wouldnt live to love anything else. And like everything else we loveeverything we sentimentally call our passions and desiresits really an encoded ancestral necessity. We were born to run; we were born because we run.

Adapted from JOCK: A Memoir of the Counterculture, about my years as a Stanford runner, 1968-1972: Pac-8 XC Championship: Pre & Lindgren: A MEMOIR

I stole only a brief glance at fifth-year Washington State red-shirt Senior Gerry Lindgren, at age twenty-three already widely considered the greatest American distance runner of all time; his only competition, the Native American Billy Mills, the 10K Gold Medalist in Tokyo. As a high school Senior, Lindgren had defeated Russias best over 10K, then run injured in the Tokyo Games a few months later. By the end of his freshman year at W.S.U. he had covered six miles the distance we were racing today in 27:11.6, a tenth of a second behind the winner Mills and faster than the existing 10,000-meter world record, based on conversion tables. Lindgren was a freak of nature and nurture. It was rumored that in high school he had sometimes gotten out of bed in the middle of the night to run ten miles (probably true); also that he once trained 350 miles a week for six weeks straight (almost certainly untrue). Abused as a child, he had grown up into a Marvel Comic Book character with a monstrous talent, inner demons and little or no sense of boundaries when it came to racing and training. The N.C.A.A. cross-country champion in 1966 and 1967 and a track titlist over 5K and 10K in 1968, he had dropped out of school to train for Mexico City, but had difficulty adjusting to altitude and failed to make the team. My stolen glances at this legendary warrior took in his geeky horn-rimmed glasses, preternaturally white skin with spidery blue veins, jug ears, and thighs like

"The first-ever Pac-8 cross-country championship convened on November 14th, 1969 the same day that Apollo 12 lifted off for the moon to land five days later in Oceanus Procellarum, at 311'51" south latitude and 2323'8" west longitude on the northwest rim of Surveyor Crater, only 600 feet from its target point: The Surveyor III, an unmanned spacecraft that had landed there on April 20, 1967. As I warmed up on the Stanford golf course that morning, I was so awestruck I could barely look around.

Batman with zero body fat on a 120-pound frame: Lindgren looked like Super-Nerd. An instant later another runner jogged past with three or four fellow Oregon Ducks, giving off a glow like a piece of jagged glass. He looked like Super-Boy. I barely had the courage to cast more than two or three furtive glances at the sensational freshman Steve Prefontaine (or at my old high school teammate Mike McClendon, who was jogging with him), but seeing Pre in person, prancing narcissistically in his day-glow green-andyellow uniform (the biggest shock was noting that he was almost exactly my size and build), I instantly believed every report (of many) that Pre, as he was already universally known, was one obnoxious prick. His own Head Coach, Bill Bowerman, had nicknamed him Rube because he hailed from the hick, bluecollar, bad-ass town of Coos Bay, Oregon, where he could have easily gotten into drugs, according to his older sister. (I had heard he was into marijuana anyway.) But instead of becoming a bigtime druggie, Pre had become the American high school two-mile record-holder, soon to land (that spring) on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He shouldnt have thought he could handle a former Olympian five years his Senior, but two weeks earlier in his college debut at the N.C.A.A. District 8 Northern Division Championships at Oregon State's Avery Park in Corvallis, Pre had shocked the west coast running world by winning the six-mile event in a new meet record, breaking the previous mark of Oregon States future Mexico City Olympian Tracey Smith by over a half-minute, with Lindgren a stunned second, twenty-seven seconds behind the prodigious freshman. Word was out that Lindgren had been returning from an injury on that day, so he would no doubt be gunning for revenge today. I also had no doubt that Pre would think he could run him into the ground a second time. Todays race promised to be a clash of two Northwesterners with balls the size of Nebraska two men who never entertained the slightest thought of losing, except to inspire themselves to accomplish feats almost no other runners in the United States could manage, collegiate or otherwise. In addition to Lindgren and Pre, each of my nemeses was present and accounted for: Cliff West and Bob Waldon from Cal; the U.S.C.

and U.C.L.A runners we had recently battled. My father was there, too, by coincidence, in the Bay Area on business. This would be the first time he would ever see me compete in a Stanford uniform, running on the rims after our very long season. But I had no doubt what I would do: For Stanford I Will! For my school, my platoon, and myself, I would leave everything I had on that golf course. This was never in question. I knew I would hold nothing back. I would psych-in. This was Do or Die, and Death was not an option. I had never smelled blood before the start of a race, but in the seconds before the gun sounded there was blood in the water, no question about it. I felt as if I wasnt standing on a starting line for a race; I felt as if I was about to jump off a cliff.

The starters pistol fired and Pre and Lindgren exploded off the starting line as if shot from cannons as if they were competing over a hundred yards, not six miles. I couldnt believe what I was seeing: Super-Nerd and Super-Boy, each sprinting full-speed, intentionally veering thirty feet out of their ways to collide with one another shoulder-to-shoulder, bounce off, then move in to collide again arms entangling, elbows jabbing, as if each wanted to knock the other to the ground. It was macho lunacy, worthy of a Big DQ (disqualification) for both of them. But the gauntlet had been flung. What else could we do? I joined the rest of the field launching itself after the pair, sprinting on my toes like a quartermiler, hoping that when the dust settled I would find myself at least among the top ten behind these two maniacs. At the half-mile mark the pace calmed a little, but far in the distance Pre and Lindgren would soon cross the mile mark at a near-suicidal pace: 4:18. Lindgren was famous for insane early paces: He had gone out in 4:14.0 in his American Record three-mile (12:53.3) in 1966. But todays race pace wasnt suicidal; it was each runner courting his own death in order to destroy his opponent. I later learned later this was mostly Pres doing. I felt I had to go fast from the start because Gerry is fast, he said which makes no sense, but there you are. As I closed in on the mile mark, at least a hundred yards behind the leaders, in maybe tenth or eleventh place, I realized that I had no clue as to the location of a single teammate. The

Our Coach Marshall Clark shouted out my Mile split, the tension in his voice speaking volumes: Four-thirty-three, THIRTY-FOUR here was one of those uh-oh moments that every distance runner dreads to his very soul, and that nearly every instinct in your body tries to protect you against. I had gone out way too fast. Less than eighteen months earlier my best all-out mile on a flat track was 4:25; we had also never run a single Monday mile-rep in training under 4:45. But I had just burned my first mile in 4:34. This race was going to be beyond brutal. I had probably run the first half-mile in something like 2:10, which meant I would be spending the next five miles dealing with the lactic acid built up from this wanton act of madness. It turned out this was what Pre wanted, too. He hated competitors who just sat on rivals, waiting to out-kick them at the end the way Mark Spitz kept defeating my fraternity brother John Ferris in the 200-meter butterfly. Most people run a race to see who is fastest, Pre would later famously remark. I run a race to see who has the most guts. The first-ever Pac-8 Cross-Country Championship would be a gut race now. In a gut race you go out hard, establish your position, then hold on for as long as you can. Thats what I had to look forward to: Survival. My memories of the next twenty-five minutes are not-surprisingly vague, but photographs show me in the second pack at two miles, just behind U.S.C.s Ritcherson and Brock and shoulder-toshoulder with McClendon. My old teammate, who had been the national postal champion at Clear Creek High, where he ran 14:00.0 for three miles, had set a new Oregon three-mile freshman record of 13:57.8 a record Pre would obliterate come springtime. I remember a Washington State runner easing by me a bit later; a little later still, someone from U.C.L.A. On a short but steep downhill portion at three and a half miles, just before our monster three-hundred-yard-long uphill climb on the 16th fairway, McClendon went by me without so much as a suck it up, friend.

entire field had become wildly strung out. Coach Clarks imperative at last years N.C.A.A. championship get together and run as a team had been completely lost in the mayhem.

At the top of the monster hill on the 16th Fairway, as far away from the finish line as our course took you, I could barely set one foot in front of the other. The long downhill would allow me to recover somewhat, but I was already toast. On most cross-country circuits, in a gut race or not, your place at two miles is fairly close to where youll finish, barring a major collapse or a major surge. But midway down the long, shallow descent towards Junipero Serra, still two miles from the finish line, Cals Cliff West went by me easily. I wasnt competing anymore. I was running to get this race over with. I had no other ambition. Other than Greg Brock, I hadnt seen a Stanford teammate since the starting line. Our vaunted pack had been blown to smithereens. The first Pac-8 Cross-Country Championship had turned into a Death March, which again was exactly what Pre wanted. Years later I found this quote from him: The best pace is a suicide pace and today is a good day to die.

Two hundred yards ahead of an excellent field (and over a minute ahead of me), Prefontaine and Lindgren were locked in a Duel of Titans that years later ESPN would rank at No. 73 among the hundred greatest track & field and cross-country competitions of the 20th century. The long-time editor of Track and Field News, Gary Hill, later said that it was the greatest foot race he ever saw. Trading the lead repeatedly, each man attempting to surge away from the other, but never getting more than six feet apart, they averaged a less-than-searing 4:51 per mile pace after their psychotic first mile, but as a feat of intestinal fortitude it must have been a race to behold. Going up the small rise 150 yards from the finish (where I had taken the lead against U.C.L.A.), Pre got a halfstep on Lindgren, then moved to cut the Cougar off from the finish line. Again and again, Lindgren later claimed, Pre tried to edge him into the crowd off to his left, but the smaller man resisted, leaning towards Pre, pushing back. They crossed the finish line together, shoulders touching, arms entangled, each wearing the same naked expression of exhausted surrender inverted hawk-moon mouths agape but only Lindgren remembered to lean at the tape, his hands half-raised to break it. They had both circumnavigated our hilly six-mile course in 28:32.4. The finish was so close that the

In coming years the Pac-8 cross-country championship of 1969 would frequently be cited as the last great American distance race of the Sixties. Nine days later, Lindgren would [run] scared and decisively defeat Pre at the N.C.A.A. Championship for his 11th individual collegiate title; a short time later he would graduate, turn schizophrenic or so it has been claimed and leave the American distance running scene to Pre, his presumptive heir. In 1980 Lindgren would also abandon his wife and children, leaving behind a note that read get a divorce, sell the business, then disappear off the face of the earth, only to turn up years later in the Hawaiian Islands, running road races under an assumed name. The Seventies would belong to Pre, who would break every American record from 2,000 to 10,000 meters, finish a heartbreaking fourth in the 1972 Munich Olympic 5K, and almost single-handedly transform the sport of long-distance running by shattering its nerdy stereotypes and lending it a new showmanship and sex appeal. The final spin on the legend would be his early accidental death, James Dean style, in a mysterious car crash at the age of twenty-four, legally drunk and suffocated under his flipped sports car on the side of a road in Eugene. Decades later, the greatest American track & field legend since Jesse Owens became the subject of two feature films, the best of them, Without Limits, written by Kenny Moore and produced by Tom Cruise, who had hoped to play the Pre himself, but by the time the production was ready to roll, he was too old. (On the day that Without Limits opened in Los Angeles in 1998, I would be one of a half-dozen people in the shopping-mall cinema for an 11:30 screening. The moment in which Bill Bowerman (played by Donald Sutherland) tells the cocky freshman (Billy Crudup),Grant me those Stanford three-milers are no slouches, especially that fellow Kardong, and Pre replies, Don Kardong? Hes not bad this was about four or five months after the conference cross-country race -- I wanted to

race was initially called a tie. There is a myth that photographs were examined, but the fact is that after officials conferred, Lindgren was given the nod on the spot. Conference records forty years later list the winner as the Cougar from Pullman.

So what did happen to me on that overcast morning of November 14th, 1969? Running those last two miles on instinct and not much else, I crossed the finish line a tick over a minute behind Pre and Lindgren in 29:33.0, a new course PR by 21 seconds, but buried in 15th place, soundly beaten by a teammate, Brock (28:08) for the first time all season. In a masterpiece of peaking gearing a season towards one race -- Greg had finished 5th, just behind Oregons Steve Savage, a future Olympic steeplechaser, and Washington States Rick Riley, yet another great eastern Washington runner who had competed internationally while still in his teens. (Rileys interscholastic two-mile record had been broken only the year before by Pre.) S.C.s Freddie Ritcherson, who had barely beaten me a month or so before, managed 7th; McClendon came through 10th; Cliff West, 13th, in 29:22. Oregon State Junior Spencer Lyman, who had won the seventh annual Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks, Alaska less than two months before this race, finished just ahead of me.

stand up and scream, Kardong didnt beat me once that year! But of course I didnt.

Brock was bouncing on his heels not far from the finish line. I trained through every meet, he told me, as I wandered around, feeling utterly trashed. I was running two-a-days on Fridays while the rest of you guys were taking it easy! I acknowledged him with a grim nod, then headed out to run my cool-down alone. I felt no resentment about Gregs boasting, none at all. He had shown up when it counted, while I had apparently squandered my chances of performing well at Conference for the sake of holding on to that stupid white cotton jersey, modestly emblazoned Stanford #1. Freshman Decker Underwood (and former California State Mile Champ) had shown up huge that day, too, finishing just two seconds behind me, obliterating my freshman course record by almost a minute and a half. Brock & Decker, two industrious tools! The pair who had grown a pair! Kardong was our fourth man, running a course PR 29:41 in 18th place but as disappointed about his performance as I was about mine. My classmate Jack Lawson, former king of the Great Valley in high school, was the fifth

As a team our 86 points nipped U.S.C. (90) and avenged our tough early-season loss to U.C.L.A. (94), but we were nowhere close to the two Northwest powerhouses: Oregon and Washington State finished one-two, 46-63. There would be no return to nationals for last years runner-up. A force to be reckoned with early in the season, competing in the toughest cross-country conference in the nation, we would be officially shut down for the year, thanks in part to the two greatest distance runners of the age.

Stanford scorer in a so-so 30:27, in 32nd place. Chuck Menz, who had been as high as our third man at times that year, had dragged himself to the finish line a full fifty seconds off his course best, while Arvid Kretz tanked, our one-time second man finishing next to last in the entire field, in 32:34. In Chuck Dyers photographs of that day I see Arvid running alongside Brock at Mile Two; his wheels must have fallen off completely.

History Repeats Itself: Records Are Made to be Broken! Just ask Craig Virgin
March 9, 2010 By Randy Sharer
It was March 9, 1980 and the venue was the Longchamp horsing racing track in Paris where 25,000 spectators turned out to watch people, not ponies, run in the world cross country championships. The 7.2-mile event is regarded as the toughest footrace because it brings together stars from the mile all the way to the marathon. No American man had ever won in the events 77-year history, but the 24-year-old farm boy from tiny Lebanon, Ill., changed that in dramatic, come-frombehind fashion. He won again in 1981 at Madrid, but no American has won since. So who is Craig Virgin and how did he do what no other American male has? Virgin was one of the few distance running prodigies to avoid physical and mental burnout long enough to become world champion. Even though his high school didnt have a track, he set 12 age-group world and national class records. His two-mile time of 8:57.4 as a sophomore in 1972 is still the national record for 15-year-olds. He broke Prefontaines national high school two-mile record of 8:41.6 with an 8:40.9 in 1973. No one ran faster in a race limited to high school runners until German Fernandez clocked 8:34.40 in 2008. Virgin broke 9:00 15 times in high school, a national record he shares with Eric Hulst. But enough about track. This story is about cross country, a sport so different from track that cross country runners get miffed when friends ask how the track meet went. Cross country was Craig Virgins first love. Its a wonderful, cathartic experience, a pure feeling being out in the country, especially in the fall when the weather is cool and the leaves change, Virgin told Marc Bloom in Running Times magazine.

A junior high basketball coach suggested Virgin give cross country a try when he got to high school. His first practice consisted of a five-mile run over a third-of-a-mile loop. He lapped the entire team. In his first race, he won. In his first sectional, he failed to qualify for the state meet, a setback that lit a fire. Virgin threw himself into year-round training and went unbeaten the next season until finishing sixth in the state meet. He won his next 48 high school cross country races in a row, setting course records in 47. His final record, a 13:50.6 for 3 miles, remains the Illinois state meet course record. At the University of Illinois, Virgin won 31 of 35 cross country races including the 1975 NCAA title. Between his high school sophomore season and his senior year in college, he won 95 of 100 races in cross country. He was the top American in eight NCAA national meets. In 1979, he broke Prefontaines national record in the 10,000 with a time of 27:39.4 that sent him into 1980 with momentum and monster goals. Self-coached at that time, Virgin logged 100-mile training weeks to strengthen one of the greatest oxygen-burning lung capacities ever measured, a VO reaching 92.0. In his first world cross country meet in 1978, Virgin finished sixth. He fell early in the muddy race of 1979, but hustled back for 13th. When he stepped to the starting line in 1980 at Paris, he was concerned about a sore hamstring, but otherwise ready to conquer the world. Before the gun fired, the antsy runners false started. Officials controlled them with corralling ropes, but when the gun went off again, Virgin was facing the wrong way and was nearly trampled. I do remember somebody grabbing me and that kept me from going all the way down on my face, he said. By the time I got my balance and took off, there was just a wall of humanity in front of me. The leaders in the field of 190 men from some 30 nations passed the first uphill 800 meters in 2:02 despite running on shaggy turf. On the second of five laps, Nick Rose of Great Britain, the rival Virgin respected more than any other, built a 30-meter lead over two-time defending champion John Treacy of Ireland. Virgin surged on that lap,

swerving through traffic like a NASCAR driver to climb into 25th. He could see the leader and instantly recognized the loping style of Rose, a Western Kentucky University alum who finished second to Virgin in the 1975 NCAA cross country meet. By the end of the second lap, Virgin was ninth, but Rose had lengthened his lead over 1977 champion Leon Schots of Belgium. Virgin joined Schots and Alex Antipov of the Soviet Union in the chase group on the third lap. Virgin then had to weigh the pros and cons of drafting off others in the safety of the pack or setting off on his own to catch Rose. I finally said I didnt come here to hand this to Nick on a silver platter, remembers Virgin, who sliced Roses lead to 20 meters with a lap to go. He looked back, saw me and then took off. At the time, it was very discouraging. On the last backstretch, Virgin was rejoined by Schots and West Germanys Hans-Jurgen Orthmann, who had beaten Virgin seven years earlier in a 3,000 meters at a junior US vs West German dual meet. I forced myself to stay on their shoulder or a step ahead over the next half mile and during that half mile, I was able to recover, Virgin said. With 900 to go, Rose dug deep, but his spurt to counter Virgins surge had come at a price. With 350 left, Orthmann lifted and took the lead, but he had moved too soon. Whether its sports, business or love, timing is everything, Virgin said. I timed that last lap-and-a-half better than what anybody else did. Part of it was instinct and part of it was practice. Virgin had trained on the last, 700-meter straightaway several times in the previous two days, noting landmarks for gear change No. 1, gear change No. 2 and then, if necessary, a final Hail Mary gear change. Virgins biggest gear took him past the fading Rose with 150 remaining and then reeled in Orthmann at the 70-meter mark. As Orthmann glanced over his left shoulder, Virgin passed on the right and sprinted through the finish chute. Usually a front runner, Virgin later called his kick that day one of the best of his career. His time for the 11,590-meter course, which included

several steeple chase barriers, was 37:01.1, 1.2 seconds better than Orthmann and 4.7 ahead of Rose. The crowd mobbed Virgin, making him feel, at least for a moment, like a rock star. He helped the U.S. team place second, one of five runner-up efforts he would be part of. Years later while working as a motivational speaker, Virgin would show the video of that 1980 race. Each time, his amazing sprint finish caused the audience to erupt in applause as if the race had just finished. There are moments of truth in every race, Virgin tells them. I had several in that race where, thank God, I made the right decision rather than giving in to discouragement. Greg Meyer, the 1983 Boston Marathon champion and another of Virgins college rivals, doesnt believe Virgins two world cross country titles get the historical credit they deserve. Frank Shorter would shoot me for this, but I think Craigs two world championships exceed Franks (1972 Olympic marathon) gold medal in terms of what it accomplished. Frank happened to win a major media event no different that I did in Boston. But in terms of pure athletic endeavor, the world cross country championship is a tougher accomplishment. Virgins college teammate, Mike Durkin, a two-time Olympian in the 1,500, has a theory about his friend: I do not think that Craig was the most physically gifted runner in terms of leg speed or strength, Durkin said, but he could push himself through shear willpower to levels that very few people on the world class level could achieve. His mind was a very powerful instrument and he had desire. Time has continued to march. Virgin qualified for a record 11 U.S. national cross country teams and ran in nine world championships, a record he shares with Pat Porter. Virgin was the first American 10,000 runner to qualify for three Olympic teams. His third-place finish in the 1976 NCAA cross country meet in 28:26.53 for 10,000 meters behind Rono and another eventual world record holder from Kenya, Samson

Kimombwa, was fast enough to have won every other year except 1979 when Rono clocked 28:19.6. Flash forward 30 years and we find Rono and Virgin on Facebook exchanging memories of past battles. Virgin, who was inducted into the U.S. Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2001, continues to follow the sports of track and field and cross country. Just last November he was in Terre Haute, Ind., watching the NCAA cross country meet, chatting with well wishers including 1964 Olympic 10,000 champion Billy Mills. It was at the 2008 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., where Virgin met girlfriend Karen LaPorte Fox. As kismet would have it, she was in the crowd in 1973 when Virgin broke Prefontaines national high school two-mile record. Another love of Virgins life is his 9-yearold daughter, Annie, already a veteran spectator of Illinois annual state high school cross country meet at Peorias Detweiller Park. Since 1972, the states best boys have ventured to the park where Americas only world champion made a mark that has stood the test of time.

Peter Snell: Gentleman, Athlete, Scholar

The 3-time Olympic medalist studies to figure out how he did it By Jim Ferstle As featured in the Feb/March 2012 issue of Running Times Magazine To track fans, Peter Snell is a triple Olympic gold medalist. In the academic community he's Dr. Snell, Ph.D., director of the Human Performance Laboratory at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He's co-written three books--one on his running career, another on the mix of science and sport, and at 73 years old, he's put on a few pounds, takes a few more naps, but shows few signs of any desire to rest on his laurels. Why should a middle-distance runner be doing 22-mile runs? Why is rest and recuperation important? What role does a coach play in a runner's development? What's more important to an athlete, psychology or physiology? Snell's search for answers to these questions has taken much longer than his rather brief athletic career, but the trip has been equally, if not more satisfying. In 1976, Snell's academic mentor, Washington State University's exercise physiologist Phil Gollnick and colleagues, published a study that was one of a series of groundbreaking research papers on the adaptation of muscle fibers to training. In simple terms, what Gollnick's study showed was that long runs were beneficial because they caused the adaptation (training) of both slow-and fast-twitch fibers. By measuring the glycogen content of the various muscle fibers at intervals of 30 minutes up to two hours of cycling done at a moderate level (60 percent

of VO2 max), the researchers discovered that it wasn't until one hour of exercise that fast-twitch fibers--those normally recruited during highspeed running--began to have their energy stores of glycogen depleted, which indicated that they were being activated. Though the pace didn't change, the recruitment of fibers did. So, at the 6:00 per mile pace Snell and Halberg were running, it took about 10 miles to begin the endurance training of the fast-twitch fibers, without the damaging effects of exhausting speed work. The fast-twitch fibers that every runner needs to call on during the end of a race, or to keep up a fast pace, are pretty much spectators early in the long run; for Snell, however, those last 7 miles of the 22-miler become prime conditioning for these fibers, developing what could be categorized as "speed endurance." "There are two ways to train fasttwitch fibers," Snell would learn in his exercise physiology studies, "moderate running for long distance or high-intensity training." Arthur Lydiard (Snells Olympic coach) broke the year up into phases, loading the endurance onto the front end, blending in hills and cross country, and finishing off with the speed and sharpening work. It's a formula now used in one form or another by nearly every distance runner. Thus, it's hard to put in perspective how revolutionary it was at the time. In the late '50s and '60s, running was an amateur sport, a hobby at best, not a career. There was little, if any, sports science backed up by research, just conjecture derived from examining the training programs of runners who were successful on a national level or at the Olympic Games. Lydiard

had approached his coaching as a scientist would, using himself as a human guinea pig, and his athletes as test subjects. He came to the conclusion that endurance was the key factor, not speed. Another thing Lydiard discovered was that high-intensity training was something one had to use sparingly and judiciously. "Arthur was always trying to figure out why [too much] high-intensity training was bad," Snell says. Gollnick was interested in this as well, so he used horses to study the effects of high-intensity training on the mitochondria of muscle cells, the so-called "powerhouses" because they convert the body's available energy supplies into the muscle contractions necessary to allow the athlete to maintain a high rate of speed. What Gollnick's experiment showed was that when the intense exercise depleted the mitochondria, the affected muscle cells took at least 24 hours to recover. In layman's terms, if you did high-intensity work or work that severely stressed your system, you didn't recover very fast. "High-intensity training does have a negative effect," says Snell, "if you don't allow the body to recover." The increased power from speed work doesn't come during the workout, but rather during recovery. If you don't allow for that recovery, you damage the muscle, not strengthen it. All this would seem to be common sense, but as Snell discovered, common sense is often ignored by highly motivated individuals, which is an accurate description of the psychological makeup of an elite runner. This is where a coach can play a vital role, says Snell, holding back these human thoroughbreds to save them from self-destruction.

All one has to do is look at the achievements of the Africans. They've never had all the resources of developed countries to devote to sports programs, so they follow the model that's worked elsewhere: Learn through trial and error. Kip Keino, who won a gold and silver medal at both the 1968 and '72 Olympics, will tell you that he didn't have access to sports science or great coaching, he simply taught himself how to succeed by asking successful coaches and athletes what they did and discovered what worked for him. "It's a relatively simple formula," says Snell. "Develop endurance as early as possible. Developing endurance is difficult and time consuming. Developing speed is a relatively short process with a fairly strong genetic component. "Try and understand the need for adequate recovery," he says, "a balance between hard training and recuperation. That's part of the art [of coaching/training]. I went to coaching camps. I came away with the feeling that psychology was a more important discipline than physiology. If you're interested in finding talent, look into the psychology of the individuals. Look for people who have a high need for achievement. Successful elite athletes might be low on other things, but they want recognition. The high achiever needs to know there is a payoff. " "In my case, I really didn't aim too high. I didn't think I was going to be an Olympian. I found when you have reasonable, attainable objectives, you are more motivated. It's easier to attain more modest goals than to be always reaching too high and falling short. Eventually, you have to aim high, otherwise you'll never get there, but you don't start out like that."

The Turning Point

By the year 2000, U.S. distance running had hit an all-time low. But precisely 10 years ago, three talented teenagers met in the greatest highschool cross-country race ever, and started an American revival. By Amby Burfoot From the January 2011 issue of Runner's World
Alan Webb can't stand still. He's popping from foot to foot, bending and stretching. He rolls his neck, touches his toes. He needs to stay loose for the explosion to comethe start of the 2000 Foot Locker High-School Cross-Country Championships. Webb wears headphones blasting a loud rock beat. Hard, rhythmic, energizing rock. "I like music that gets me pumped up," he says. "Music that psychs me up." Inside his head, guitars shriek and drums reverberate, but on this day Webb hardly hears them. He is distracted by another sound, far more insistent than the music: His own voice. His mantra. His reason for being, in this frozen moment. The voice says, Stay with Dathan. Stay with Dathan. Don't let Dathan break

you.
Thirty-one other high-school runners line up with Webb at the Foot Locker start, eight from each region of the countryEast, South, Midwest, and West. Getting to the final is like making an Olympic team; you must qualify via brutal regional races. The 32 kids pawing the start on the fourth fairway of Disney World's Oak Trail golf course in Orlando are the best in the country. Some 5000 meters (3.1 miles) later, the winner will be king. Towering behind the runners is a giant inflated Foot Locker referee in black-and-white stripes. Each regional team starts together and wears a different colorgreen (East), light blue (South), red (Midwest), and dark blue (West). The temperature has already reached the mid-70s for the 10:10 a.m. start, and a bright sun burnishes the runners' uniforms. Cross-country may have been born 160 years earlier in England's wintry mix of cold, rain, and muck, but this is the Disney Technicolor version.

This 2000 Foot Locker final has attracted more attention, by far, than any of the 21 that preceded it. "I called it 'The Battle of the Century,'" says Marc Bloom, longtime publisher/editor of The Harrier, a newsletter covering the high-school cross-country scene. "In a normal year, you'd be lucky to have one runner performing at such a superhigh level. That year there were three." The three are Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein, both 17, and Ryan Hall, 18. They are well known in high-school circles, but teen runners often produce brilliant efforts and quickly flame out. No one would dare predict that these three would become, as they did, the dominant U.S. distance runners of the next decade. Webb is a powerhouse from Reston, Virginia. Nine months earlier, as a junior, he had run a 1600-meter relay-leg in 3:59.9 at the Penn Relays. In his senior year, he would become the first (and only) high schooler to ever break 4:00 for the indoor mile. Outdoors, he would go on to crush Jim Ryun's revered mile record for high schoolers with a mind-boggling 3:53.43a record that could last for decades. In 2004, Webb would make the USA Olympic Team and in 2007 set a new American record for the mile, 3:46.91, taking down Steve Scott's 25-year-old mark. Ritzenhein is the defending champ, an aerobic monster who grew up beside the Hush Puppy shoe factory in Rockford, Michigan. He stands 5'6", weighs 112 pounds, and looks like a bench warmer on the chess team. But Ritz, as he is known, hasn't lost a cross-country race in two years. He also has a bountiful future: After graduating from the University of Colorado, where he'd win the 2003 NCAA cross-country championships, Ritzenhein would qualify for the 2004 (10,000 meters) and 2008 (marathon) Olympic teams, and three times win the USATF national cross-country championships. In 2009, he would set a U.S. record for 5000 meters (12:56.27, since lowered by Bernard Lagat) and run the second-fastest half-marathon ever by an American, 60:00. Hall is from Big Bear Lake, Californiapopulation 5,438, with an altitude from 6,700 feet to 9,000 feet. He had attended a Jim Ryun running camp and modeled himself on Ryun's determination and faith; the next year, he ran 1500 meters in 3:45.12, equivalent to a 4:02 mile. After graduation, Hall would attend Stanford University, where he'd win the 2005 NCAA

5000-meter title. Then he would focus on road races, setting an American record for 20 kilometers and winning the U.S. half-marathon championships in 2007 (in a new U.S.-record time of 59:43). Hall would also win the dramatic 2007 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Central Park and place fifth at the 2008 London Marathon with the second-fastest time, 2:06:17, ever run by a U.S. citizen. "For once, the big dogs all came together in one place to go after each other," notes veteran TV commentator Toni Reavis. "And they brought such great stories with themthey all had these amazing running pedigrees but different personalities." As Webb steadies for the starting gun, he's preparing himself for, in his own words, "a slaughterfest." Everyone knows Ritzenhein's routine. He always screams to the front from the get-go, running to the max, taunting others to match him. Those who take the dareand there are fewsoon regret it. No one can maintain his killer pace. Given that he's lining up with two four-minute milers, Webb and Hall, it seems a sure thing that Ritz will start fast. He won't sit around and wait for the big kickers. "Dathan races like Prefontaine and Salazar," Reavis observes. "He's willing to kill himself. You hate to race those kinds of guys, because they will make you hurt really early and really bad." At the sound of the gun, Webb digs in and drives forward. He wants to get out clean and fast. For the first 100 yards, he's careful: A year's planning and training could vanish in a tumble or spike wound. But Webb's out smoothly. When he spots an opening to his right, he steers over. Now he's got a little room. Webb eyes a runner just ahead of him but realizes it's not Ritzenhein. Too tall, wrong form. It's Wesley Keating, from Texas, who's not a threat. Okay, let him go. Webb relaxes. He has no interest in leading. He only wants to cover Ritz's every move. A half-mile passes. No change. Keating leads; Webb is still loping a few yards back. The pace couldn't be any easier. "I felt like we were running slower than five minutes for the mile," says Webb. But where's Ritzenhein? Webb's curiosity gets the best of him. He's spent the last five months visualizing a fierce duel with Ritz; he even tacked a photo of Ritzenhein on his bedroom door. Webb has pledged his every

corpuscle to hanging with Ritz's blitzkrieg start. And now the guy isn't even playing ball. Webb understands peripheral vision. He lets his eyes roll to the right for a quick look-see. No Ritz. He glances left. No Ritz. What the...? By 2000, American distance running had flopped to a historical low point. For the first time, only one American male and one female qualified for the Olympic Marathon. At the Sydney Olympics, Christine Clark placed 19th, and Rod DeHaven placed 69th. American runners fared little better on the track, with Jason Pyrah 10th in the 1500, Adam Goucher 13th in the 5000 meters, and Abdi Abdirahman and Meb Keflezighi 10th and 12th, respectively, in the 10,000. No American came close to medaling at a distance beyond 400 meters. In weekend road races, increasing numbers of Kenyans began to claim the top spots in U.S. fixtures like Peachtree, Falmouth, and Bay to Breakers. The same was true in our famous marathons: Boston, New York, Chicago. No American male won any of these in the 1990s. Yet despite the flagging fortunes of U.S. distance running, accompanied by a near-total lack of newspaper and TV coverage, a new generation of highschoolers was getting stoked about the sport. Four things spurred their interest: the Internet; the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; a training book by Jack Daniels, Ph.D.; and two feature movies about legendary Oregon star Steve Prefontaine. The Web led the way, particularly a modest site named Dyestat.com. It was launched in 1998 by John Dye, a midlife federal employee in the U.S. Small Business Administration. Dye had database and Web development skills but little interest in track or running until his teenage children joined the track team at Middletown High in Maryland. Then he decided to compile lists of top local performances to find out how his kids stacked up. Before long, his effort morphed into national Top 100 lists for all boys and girls events, and thousands of young track team members surfed there to see if they were ranked. The message boards also proved irresistible to these early social networkers in spikes. Traffic at Dyestat.com doubled every year in the late 1990s, eventually reaching 2 million page views a month. "I was shocked," says Dye, whose site has now been absorbed by ESPN's RISE Web site. "I never planned for any kind of success on that

scale." "The Internet fed a hunger that was already there but completely unserved," says Reavis. "It was a new medium for these kids. They had a need, this was their time, and Dyestat opened the doors to their special community." The 1996 Atlanta Olympics had its share of problems, and plenty of critics to point them out. But it also produced stellar achievements on the track. Ritzenhein remembers the thrill he felt when fellow Midwesterner Bob Kennedy grabbed the lead two laps from the end of the 5000. Kennedy couldn't hold on, fading to sixth, but there was no question about his will or the stadium's thunderous response. Ritzenhein was impressed. Webb doesn't recall Kennedy's race. But just ask him about U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson, who won two golds in Atlanta, including a world record for 200 meters. Webb loved Johnson's businesslike attitude, bruising power, and star qualitynot to mention his footwear. "Those gold Nike shoes Johnson wore in Atlanta, they were just so cool," Webb says. Another important event was the evolution of coaching. For decades, many high-school running coaches had been hacks from other sports. They understood whistles, stopwatches, and clipboards, but little else. By the 1990s, however, more coaches were "running-boom" veterans with a genuine empathy for their athletes. In 1998, with the publication of Daniels

Running Formula, they gained a technical training manual to match their

enthusiasm. Daniels had been anointed "the world's best running coach" by

Runner's World. His book explained how coaches could individualize

workouts with pace-specific training paces for runners of varying abilities. "By the late '90s, you began to see a new and wonderful level of coaching across the country," says Bloom. "A lot of the coaches were using Jack's book." On a visceral level, though, nothing could compare with the late-1990s movies Prefontaine and Without Limits. While Steve Prefontaine fell short of his goal, finishing fourth in the nail-biting 1972 Olympic 5000, and died in a car crash three years later, his message was clear: Go for it. After seeing the movies about Pre's life, Webb modeled himself after his hero for several years, memorizing and repeating famous Pre quotes like "I run to see who has the most guts." Ritzenhein found a parallel between

Prefontaine's working-class roots and his own family, particularly his father's rise from a gas-line grunt to a management position. "Prefontaine worked harder than anyone else, and he put it all on the line every time he raced," Ritzenhein says. "I adopted that as the way I trained and raced." Like Webb, Ryan Hall hoped for a solid start at the Foot Locker final. He also kept an eye peeled for Ritzenhein. "We knew Dathan was going to go out like a madman," he says. But Hall and his fellow West runners had another concern: They didn't want to overextend themselves in the first mile. While the other 24 competitors had enjoyed a two-week rest since their qualifiers, the West runners had only seven days. Most decided to race with caution. Hall, a chesty 5'11" and 145 pounds with close-cropped blond hair, deliberately didn't match Webb in the early going. He lagged a little, trusting that it would prove the right tactic. Still, patience wasn't his strong suit; he soon grew antsy. "My teammates and I got a little bit mired in the middle when the course narrowed," he says. "It was hard finding room to move. And I couldn't figure out what Dathan was doing. Where was he?" Hall was the least experienced of the three, running in his first Foot Locker final, and the most improbable and unpredictable. On his first training run as an eighth-grader, he had somehow survived 15 miles with his dad, Mickey, a 3:07 marathoner. His high school didn't have a track or crosscountry team when he entered ninth grade, so Mickey, a P.E. teacher and baseball coach at Big Bear High, organized "clubs" for Ryan and his friends. Mickey Hall brought an uncommon wanderlust and curiosity to his coaching. He had lived in Australia in the late 1970s, and there he met the two genius distance coaches from Down Under: New Zealand's Arthur Lydiard and Australia's Percy Cerutty. Back home, he and Ryan both attended a Jim Ryun Running Camp in Kansas. The young Hall found himself mesmerized by Ryun's spectacular high-school runningRyun had run a 3:55.3 high-school record in 1964the obstacles he faced later in his track career, and his bedrock Christian faith. Meanwhile, his father peppered camp speaker Jack Daniels with training questions. "It was a huge deal for me to meet Jim Ryun and his family," Ryan says. "I didn't feel like just a number at his camp. He was so personal, and such an

inspiration." Back home, Ryan plastered his bedroom with reminders of his new goal3:59. Year by year, Mickey Hall gradually increased his son's training: 45 miles a week, 65 miles, 85 miles, all at Big Bear's high altitude. Most days Ryan ran medium-effort distance runs. On occasion, his father prescribed steep hill repeats on the local slopes. Following Lydiard, Mickey placed little reliance on speed-work. This frustrated his son, who read Internet posts about other runners' eye-popping sessions, and wanted to match, or exceed, them himself. After almost every workout, he whined, "Dad, I could have run a lot harder." The previous year, Mickey had kept Ryan out of the Foot Locker competitions, sensing that the long California season had depleted his son. He related stories of athletes who burned out from too much racing and speedwork, and of Olympic champions raised on long, moderate distance. Ryan was unmoved. "Coaching Ryan was like working a wild stallion," Mickey says. "He always wanted to run as fast as possible. He always had that fire in his eyes. It was just something he was born with." Mickey finally capitulated during Ryan's junior track season, and the two began consulting with Irv Ray, a successful college coach at California Baptist University. Ray introduced long, hard tempo runs; Ryan liked them and responded well, recording his fastest track times yet. So when crosscountry season began in September 2000, he continued with similar workouts. But Hall's season started badly. He ran several courses slower than the year before, and threw up after a poor effort in the Stanford Invitational, possibly due to a prescription med. Mickey and Irv Ray reduced the work load. Ryan protested, but relented. Several weeks later he broke a 21-year-old record on L.A.'s fabled Mt. SAC course. He was a heavy favorite to win the West Regional on the same punishing course but almost failed to complete the distance. He wobbled to the finish in fourth, apparently dehydrated. "I came close to pulling him off the course on the last hill," says Mickey. "He was white as a ghost. If you want to know the truth about Ryan's senior year in cross-country, it was a disaster. There were so many ups and downs."

Still, as he jockeyed for better position in the first mile of the Foot Locker final, Hall reminded himself that this might be his day. He knew he could run with the best, he was excited to race his first Foot Locker, and he had followed a drastic taper to ensure freshness. "I realized I might be in a downward spiral," he says, "but I also believed I might catch a flier and win. I always challenged myself to rise to the occasion." Moments after the race start, Erik Heinonen settled into last placeright where he wanted to be. Heinonen, from Eugene, Oregon, had placed fifth in the West Regional race by passing dozens of runners in the last mile. He hoped for the same in the final. "I had a simple plan," he says. "I went straight to the back. That's where I was on the first turn when I looked over and saw another runner beside me. I remember yelling at him, 'Hey, Dathan, what are you doing back here?'" Webb, near the front, still hadn't seen either Hall or Ritzenhein. This gnawed at him briefly before he changed his outlook. If Ritz wanted to monkey around, all the better for Webb. "I was expecting Ryan or Dathan to blow out the first mile," he says. "But if they were going to dawdle, that was fine with me. I was thinking, This is great. I'm going to win this thing." A muscular 5'9" and 140 pounds with a toothy, gummy smile, Webb had an almost primal need to compete and win. He had begun racing in topflight D.C.-area swim leagues at age 6, starting with the sprints "Everyone wants to be a sprinter first," he saysbefore moving up to longer distances. "There's nothing like winning," he says. "It gives you a flutter in the gut." Though he set an elementary-school record in the mile run, Webb was still primarily a swimmer when he began to enter cross-country and track races in ninth grade. Right away, something was different. Better. He went from good to off-the-charts great in a flash. "Everything just clicked," he says. "My improvement curve was exponential. I began to wonder: How hard can

I push myself? How far can I go? How fast can I run?"
Webb knew something about mathematical curves and data collection. His father is a World Bank economist. As Webb's passion for running mushroomed"I went hard core"he began tracking everything: his miles, his times, his weight lifting. He thought he might analyze the info and

detect secret pathways to success. More impressively, while still at a young age, he managed to grasp the big picture. "I remember early on that I realized if you combined a great ambition with a great work ethic, you could produce powerful results," he says. Webb produced like no one before him. As a sophomore, he ran the mile in 4:06.94, breaking the class record (4:07.8) Jim Ryun had set 36 years earlier. That fall, a junior at South Lakes High, Webb went undefeated in cross-country through the 1999 South Regional. Two weeks later, he flew to his first Foot Locker final convinced he could win. But he and others had underestimated another junior, Ritzenhein, who pushed to the front in the last 800 meters, as Webb faded to eighth, his rhythm disrupted by the undulations of the course. Never lacking for confidence or combativeness, Webb couldn't wait for the rematch. Through the summer and fall, nothing else mattered. There were local races, and States, and the South Regional, sure. But those were mere stepping stones. "I was on a personal mission," he says. "I was so focused, so motivated. I ran workouts that just about buried me. I prepared for a battle. I was 10 times more ready than the year before." Webb understood that small stuff makes a difference. On easy days, he ran in a Virginia neighborhood with terrain like that of the Disney course. Before leaving home, he packed a cooked pasta meal in Tupperware. He ate it alone in his hotel room as his prerace dinnera big improvement, he figured, over the hot dogs and hamburgers that had been served at the 1999 prerace dinner. "I was so into every detail," he says. "I kept telling myself it was the biggest race of my life, and I had done all I possibly could to prepare for it. I thought I was ready for anything." On race morning, as Webb churned around the eighth tee of the Oak Trail golf course and headed to the mile mark, it seemed that his intense planning would pay off. He had staked out the perfect position near the front. He felt comfortable; he was ready to pounce. While he hadn't seen Ritzenhein or Hall yet, that was okay. Webb was running his own race, and he was in control. The afternoon before the Foot Locker final, Ritzenhein and his coach, Brad Prins, relaxed at a nearby movie theater, taking in the latest Austin Powers

flick. " He warned me not to laugh too much," Ritzenhein says. "To be careful not to waste energy." Ritz just rolled his eyes. In his five years with Prins, he had gotten used to the strange comments, weird antics, and insane workouts. Still, Ritzenhein, slight and angular with a choirboy face, was unprepared for what Prins said afterward. "Do you know how you're going to beat Alan Webb tomorrow?" Prins asked.

Duh, by destroying him and everyone else in the first mile like I've been doing all year long?
"You're going to go out slow and take it easy the first mile," Prins continued. "I don't care what the pace is. But as soon as you hit the mile, you're going to sprint and sprint and keep on sprinting until you break everyone." Prins was gruff and unvarnished. A 35-year Rockford High math teacher, he had started running at midlife, lost 60 pounds, and qualified for Boston with a 3:10. In his classroom, he delighted in forcing nervous students to solve problems on their feet. At cross-country practice, the torture cut deeper. In Dathan Ritzenhein, Prins found the perfect vessel. "Dathan had the drive to push himself to the edge day after day," Prins says. "And I was mean enough to force him out onto that edge." The two had met when Ritz's father, a triathlete, brought the seventhgrader to a North Kent Track Club workout run by Prins. Ritz had the usual distorted visions of athletic glory: He wanted to pitch in the bigs, or play quarterback at Notre Dame. Only problem: Ritzenhein was five feet tall, 106 pounds, and looked like a "butterball," in his own words. Prins took one look at the waddling youngster and declared: "Nope, not going to happen." Over the next year, Ritzenhein sprouted six inches, put on only a few pounds, and spent all his free time bicycling, swimming, and running. He loved the midweek 20-mile time trials organized by the local bike club. "It was fun to go hard," he says. "Going slow was boring. I liked to improve and break barriers." During the winter of his eighth-grade school year, the now-lean Ritzenhein

threw himself into running. Every morning before school, he ran four miles as fast as he could. Pitch darkness, freezing winds, blizzards, no problem. By early spring, the runs took only 22 minutes. That summer he ran a road 5-K in 16:10. "Suddenly, people were like, 'Who is this kid?'" he recalls. Realizing he had a prodigy in town, Prins read everything he could about distance running and tested each training idea on Ritz and his other runnerssprints, stadium steps, ankle weights, plyometrics, tempo runs, long runs. "We were his guinea pigs, and trained like crazy," says Ritzenhein. "It's amazing I never got hurt. I just kept getting stronger." One day he ran eight miles in the morning and intervals that lasted half the afternoon. A final tally showed 32 x 400 meters in 65 seconds, with enough warmup and cooldown to give him 22 miles for the day. Ritz took the full brunt, and he asked for more. One season he complained that he was weak on hills. "Oh, we can fix that," Prins chortled. He began taking Ritzenhein to a local ski slope to run hill repeats. However, Prins worried that running down the steep hill might cause a leg injury. More diabolically, he wanted to reduce the recovery time between repeats. So he met Ritzenhein at the top of each repeat in his four-wheeldrive Subaru Legacy, then drove him back down in 30 seconds, complete with clouds of dust and screeching brakes. From time to time, the team ran sprints on a big parkland loop. Prins sat in a director's chair, blowing a whistle to start and stop each sprint. The runners never knew when they would begin, or how long they would have to maintain each full-tilt effort. Start-stop, start-stoparound and around they flew. After 15 minutes, everyone was collapsing. Even Ritzenhein, far ahead of the others. This roused Prins from his chair. "Dathan would be crawling on the ground, and I'd run over and kick him in the butt," Prins says. "He'd look at me with this big grin, jump to his feet, and away he'd go. We pushed hard, but we had fun with it." Ritzenhein admits as much. It helped that he was winning everything in sight. "I got so much satisfaction getting better," he says. "The longer the distance, the better I did. Others might beat me in speed workouts, but I could kill them in tempos and longer runs. It never bothered me to redline it forever."

"Dathan came to realize he had a special talent, and he refused to just go through the motions," Prins says. "He didn't squander anything. He always tried to be the best he could be." In the summer and fall of 2000, Ritzenhein trained harder than ever before. He hit 100-mile weeks on occasion, and he held steady around 80 miles a week during the season. He trained through his races and still won by wide margins, often breaking his own course records. "Senior year was a frenzy," he says. "I knew it was my last high-school cross-country season, and I knew what was coming at Foot Locker. The tension just kept building. The last couple of weeks, it was almost boiling over." That's when Prins cut Ritzenhein's mileage at last and turned up the speed. The week before the Foot Locker final, Bloom called Ritzenhein for an update. His most-recent workout: 9 x 400 meters, with the first three 400s in 66 seconds, the next three in 62, and the last three in 58, 57 and 55. The skinny kid was already an aerobic fiend. Now he was honing his turnover. On race-day morning, Ritzenhein rolled out of bed at 4 a.m. for his usual race-day "shake out" run. Nothing specialjust a two-mile jog and a handful of strides to break up the cobwebs. On this particular morning, he needed it. "I was super nervous," he says. "I used the time to get some focus before the madness." Amazingly, Ritzenhein recalls almost nothing of the first mile. "I know it sounds strange," he says, "but all I remember is that it felt so bizarre to have other runners around me. There hadn't been anyone near me in a race for a long time." Just before the 32 runners swarmed past the mile mark, Ritzenhein moved up on the outside of the course and grabbed a slight lead, pulling ahead of Webb. He saw the mile clock just ahead: 4:42, 4:43, 4:44 ... A noisy crowd of friends, family, media, and cross-country fans had collected at the mile, anticipating fireworks. "There was a pulsating energy all along the course," says Bloom. "Everyone was expecting something special." 4:45, 4:46 ... When Ritzenhein scooted past the mile clock, he saw the pixels blink 4:47. Then he broke into a dead sprint. He stretched out his

wiry legs, pumped his birdlike arms, and sucked air into his thin-butcapacious lungs. "Basically, I just laid all my cards on the table," he says. "I think maybe the slow first mile threw the guys for a loop, but it was now-or-never time." Webb, alone in second, was ready. He was expecting this. He was right where he wanted to be. Only one hitch: "I figured no one could run away from me, but the move Dathan made was really huge," Webb says. "He got a few meters right away, so I decided to creep back to him little by little." That's the textbook response, of course. An explosive runner like Webb could quickly close the gap, but that would be a bonehead move. Webb was smart. With two miles yet to run, he chose to bide his time. In a matter of seconds, Ritz led Webb by 10 meters. Everyone else had disappeared from view, or so it seemed. Distance races are often called "races of attrition." Few change character so quickly, so completely. This one did. There was no attrition. Ritzenhein simply laid waste to the whole field. In the second mile, Ritzenhein was in full steamroller mode. He noticed that the course was spongier and bumpier than the previous year, the weather more draining. Excellent. The tougher the conditions, the better his chances. Mainly, he focused on his objective: push, push, push. "There's a lot of pressure when you commit and go to the front," he says. "Suddenly you become the hunted, and everyone's got you in their sights. I had to make sure Alan never got back on me." Webb kept waiting for the gap to shrink. He was running all out, yet got no reward for his effort. Over one hillock and down the next, up one fairway and around the green, he couldn't make a dent on Ritz's lead. It held constant at 10 meters. "It took everything I had just to stay close," he says. "I was so surprised. I expected my breathing to calm down, but I just couldn't get it back. I began to realize, Oh my God, it's not happening." Ritzenhein covered the second mile in 4:37, 10 seconds faster than the first. He had no idea where Webb and Hall were. The crowds were screaming so loud, so close, that he couldn't decipher any clear message. He resisted looking back. This was no time to give a rival hope. "I was running out of steam," he says. "Pushing to the limit. I knew I'd have

nothing left at the end." Hall had yet to manage a big move. Through much of the twisty second mile, he couldn't even see Ritzenhein and Webb, who had surged far ahead. He focused on staying in front of the West runners who had beaten him at regionals. "I missed the critical moment when Dathan and Alan took off, and then they were gone," he says. "I thought they might blow up and come back, but mainly I worked to fend off the other West runners." The strategy paid off. Soon he was in third place, gaining on Webb. The celebrated trio had raced to the first three positions, although Ritz held what looked like an insurmountable lead. In the last mile, Webb almost cracked. He felt more observer than participant, as if he were watching a video that violated the laws of his known universe. With every stride, the skin-and-bones runner ahead of him was increasing his lead. "I'd never been broken so far from the finish," Webb says. "I couldn't believe what was happening." When he realized Hall was closing near the three-mile mark, Webb mustered a kick to maintain his position. He finished second in 14:55, Hall third in 14:59. Ritzenhein never let up. He thrashed his way through the third mile to the biggest lead in the history of the Foot Locker boys final. He broke the tape in 14:35, a full 20 seconds ahead of Webb, having utterly demolished the entire field. All across the land, young running fans logged onto Dyestat.com and declared Ritzenhein the untouchable king of high-school distance runners. In three years of Foot Locker competition, he had finished eighth (sophomore year), first, and first. Disgusted with his third-place finish, Hall brushed past his parents and hurried back to his hotel. There he saw and congratulated the girls race winner, Sara Bei, who would, five years later, become his wife. Then he went out for a run. "I was really upset," he says. "I had some things I just had to get out of me, so I went and ran as hard as I could for 45 minutes." A stunned Webb sought solace from his parents. "They were good," he says. "They didn't sugarcoat it; they knew how disappointed I was." Moments later, searching for a silver lining, he looked ahead. "I had built

up such a great base of fitness in crosscountry, I figured it would pay dividends," he says. "With some good speed workouts, I thought the track times would come." Ritzenhein staggered through the chute and collapsed to the grassa signature move. He was soon surrounded by wellwishers: his parents; Rockford teammate Kalin Toedebusch, who had just finished sixth in the girls race (and who would later become his wife); and Brad Prins. Even as the turf cushioned Ritzenhein's spent body, he couldn't shake the agonies just endured. "I was hurting so bad the last two miles," he says. "I kept going by telling myself, You only have to hurt another 10 minutes. If you

don't keep pushing, you'll regret it the rest of your life."

Ritz had won with grit, sweat, resolve. He won with talent and guts. He won because he understood that victory doesn't come cheap, and he was willing to pay the price. "It was my last high-school cross-country race," he says. "My last Foot Locker. It was so important. It seemed like the biggest thing in the world."

COMMON

ROUTES AND TRAILS

USED FOR WORKOUTS

BY SEQUOIA X-COUNTRY

2012