Altoona Wins State Indoor Meet

[usatf oldguy]

Congrats to altoona on back to back indoor state titles indoors.Quite a feat,and saw several athletes scored.Came down to the final race according to the paper.Also saw that gehret had the fastest indoor 200 in the nation this year!WOW.Came really closed in the 400 too. Their miler seems to be coming around really well too.These guys should be fun to watch in the outdoor season.I hope the mirror gives a little better write ups this year.The performances we see this year we may not see again for decades!When you win back to back state titles in anything you deserve the press.

[wickedcrossover]

No doubt. Altoona has a real nice program going on in bothT&F and crosscountry. Endress and Fisher should do some damage in mid-distance and distance this year. There relay teams should be solid. I am curious however, how they are going to run/jump Gehret. Counting relays he could probably excel at 7 events.

[usatf oldguy]

Just saw today gehret won the 400 at nationals in boston(reggie lewis center) 47.69 I believe was the time.Also endress was 8th in the 800 at 1:54 something.Said he just missed all american status,needed to be sixth or better a 1:50 something won.These altoona boys continue to impress.Does anyone know where they train at?I know this area doesn't have many indoor facilities.Maybe state college?Anyway I know they are training hard somewhere as you don't see times like that very often.

[WPIAL~Titan]

Altoona Area HS has an indoor track...Their HS was designed with very wide hallways in and around the Fieldhouse...Seriously, they train in the hallways and also outdoors, when possible.

No HS teams have indoor tracks, to my knoweldge. State College has a 14 lap to the mile track surrounding their HS gym, but that isn't adequate to do speedwork. Then again, I am sure their team could take advatnage of the PSU facility. BTW, Ashenfelter is beautiful.

[usatf oldguy]

I would venture a guess that gehret or even altoona may be able to get in at penn states track.He is commited to penn state already.There have also been quite a few altoona kids run at penn state too.

[Lemmy]

Endress run an incredible amount of mileage for a high school runner. It is mostly outside roadwork during the summer/fall/winter. His mileage would lead you worry about burnout. He did fade a little at the end of cross country season last year. The Summit Athletic Club in Altoona does have a passable indoor running area. The turns do not have any banking.

[hornets69]

Altoona Area HS has an indoor track...Their HS was designed with very wide hallways in and around the Fieldhouse...Seriously, they train in the hallways and also outdoors, when possible.

No HS teams have indoor tracks, to my knoweldge. State College has a 14 lap to the mile track surrounding their HS gym, but that isn't adequate to do speedwork. Then again, I am sure their team could take advatnage of the PSU facility. BTW, Ashenfelter is beautiful.

what is the building at forest hills? does that have an indoor track in it?

[WPIAL~Titan]

HS runners have no need to run more than 45-50 miles a week, even while training for XC and the 1600/3200 in track. Overtrained HS runners flame out in college. The longest run for a HS runner should be 75 minutes easy. Speedwork should be slower reps with short recoveries or faster reps with full recovery. Young runners break down too quickly.

I checked my old logs and the most I ran my senior year in HS was 55 miles one week during the summer before XC season, with no doubles. While training for XC in college, I averaged 77 miles a week in July, August, and September with a high of 93 miles and a low of 60 miles (the 60 was in July when I was building up after outdoor track season; the 93 was in August when I was 90+ 4 weeks in a row.) I usually doubled M-R in July and August and M-W in September. The AM run was always an easy 30-40 minutes (4-5 miles), with 60-75 minutes in the PM.

The biggest difference was that college XC was 8K/5 miles/10K while HS XC was only a 5K. Thus, more mileage was needed to be competitive at a longer distance.

I used LehighU's course as a barometer when I was running in college, because states was there my senior year in HS...I ran Lehigh's course in 16:26 my senior year in HS at states, them my soph year in college, I went through the first 5K of a 10K XC race at LehighU in 16:08 (finished 10K in 32:33, 5:14 per mile pace). Thus, the increased mileage resulted in me running the entire 10K at a pace faster than my 5K pace at states in HS.

Indoor and outdoor track mileage was much less, indoors I topped out at 70-75 a week, and outdoors dropped to 60-65 with less mileage later in the season and more speedwork. I ran mostly the 1500m outdoors, with an occasional 800m or 5000m and indoors usually the 3000m/2mile or mile, with an occasional 600m, 800m, or 1000m race to test my speed.

My point: HS runners are better to be undertrained with minimal speedwork.

[usatf oldguy]

All I know titan is someone knows what they are doing at altoona.They have several athletes that are top notch in 400 -1600.The gehret boy is a great athlete in the jumps, sprints and 400,but running a 47.60 indoors is incredible.He has to have been training a while to get to that level.I was a jumps man myself so speed, strength,and vertical was primarily what I focused on.All I know is if you want to see a quality 400 watch this year.It may be a lifetime before another one like this comes along!