Artichoke Invitational

A quick update about the Artichoke Invitational. It will take place this year on its traditional first Saturday in October (October 3rd). What will change is the schedule. This year, the schedule will follow a typical invitational schedule with all races starting in the morning. You can view the projected schedule at this link:
https://lynbrooksports.prepcaltrack.com/ATHLETICS/XC/2026/hmb-info.pdf

NorCal incoming freshmen

Moving this to the top. Any other freshmen that should be added to the lists below? Please list their names and middle school times/ accolades in the comment section below. I will add them to the list before we get into September.

Eli Hernandez Granada NCS 4:13.95 (1500), 4:30.8 (1600), 8:58.71 (3000)
Desmond Prindiville Woodside Priory CCS 4:13.57 (1500), 4:27.84 (1600), 4:29.13 (mile)
Henry Bartle Carmel CCS 2:02.75 (800), 4:11.06 (1500), 4:27.35 (1600), 4:29.16 (mile)
Batu Duygulutuna Los Gatos CCS 2:09.67 (800), 4:38.15 (1600)
Noah Wilson McClatchy SJS 2:15.93 (800), 4:35.57 (1600), 4:37.02 (mile) 10:49.79 (3200)
Lucas McKenna St. Francis, MV CCS 2:15.74 (800), 4:38.53 (1500), 4:54.85 (1600), 4:56.35 (mile)
Noah Jacques Woodside CCS 4:45.86 (1500), 5:02.60 (1600), 5:07.96 (mile)
Bailey Stucker Mountain View CCS 2:01.98 (800), 4:29.13 (mile)
Knox Williams De La Salle NCS 4:29.57 (1500), 4:45.71 (1600), 4:47.28 (mile)

Janet Criss Moreau Catholic NCS 11.67 (100), 23.97 (200), 58.56 (400)
Ava Takeuchi Whitney (SJS) 2:17.24 (800), 4:44.68 (1500), 5:18.57 (1600), 5:23.78 (mile)
Annika Whalen Mountain View CCS 2:20.33 (800)
Stella Hahn Lick-Wilmerding NCS? 1:01.77 (400), 2:22.03 (800), 4:56.33 (1500)
Mae Mickel Miramonte NCS 2:27.65 (800), 5:20.0h (1600)
Emma Logan Miramonte NCS 2:29.12 (800), 5:29.0h (1600)
Emory Hartzell Woodside CCS 2:45.93 (800), 5:57.78 (1600)

Any other outstanding freshmen?

Catching up with St. Francis, SJ coach Chad Worthen

Today, we catch up with St. Francis, SJ coach Chad Worthen. St. Francis is his third HS coaching stint, following stints at Inderkum and Oak Ridge. He's also coached at Sierra College, CSU Sacramento as well as the Oak Hill Racing and Sacramento Valley Endurance Clubs. Coach Worthen took over the SF program in 2022. During the 2025 cross country season, the Troubadours finished in 2nd place at the state meet in Division III, led by freshman Alyssa Gutierrez, who finished in 2nd place individually. Going into the 2026 season, St. Francis is favored to win the state team title in Division III. Tullyrunners.com has St. Francis as the 12th best team in the nation in their pre-season rankings.

1) What was your own athletic experience before and during high school? Favorite memories? Proudest achievements?
I played mostly soccer growing up, with some baseball sprinkled in. Not much in the way of youth track or cross country back then in my area in Rocklin, CA. I played soccer for 13 years. Once I got to High School I couldn't make the soccer team and turned my focus to Track. I was a sprinter and was focused on the 100 and 200 meters. I didn't really discover distance running until I was around 20 years old and in Junior College at Sierra.

2) You qualified for the 2004 Olympic Marathon Trials and won the 2008 San Francisco Marathon. How has your own experience as an elite runner influenced the way you coach high school athletes? What's something you believed about training when you were an elite athlete that you no longer believe? What's something you learned through your own running career that you wish every high school runner understood?
When I first started coaching High School, I was trying to adapt my own running as an adult elite Marathoner into these High Schoolers. Not with all the mileage (I went up to 140 mpw) but the schedule and the workouts. Took me a while to figure out that wasn't a good way to go about things. Mileage isn't the end all be all it was for me when I was running Marathons. Yes, I believe miles are important, but year-round (with breaks) consistency is even more important. I wish all High School runners understood that. Our top athletes knock out a huge chunk of their training in the offseason. This is where they hit their peak mileage; this is where the bigger workouts are. Once we get to the season, we are racing almost every week, so the training involves coming off one race and going into another. 

3) You've coached at several Sacramento-area schools. What have you learned from each program that has influenced how you coach at St. Francis?
The three High Schools that I have coached at are all extremely different. When I started at Inderkum back in 2016 there wasn't much of a program and I was building numbers just to get kids to try distance running. When I came to St. Francis in 2022 they had been to several CIF XC State meets in a row. So a bit of apples to oranges. One thing I try to remind the higher level athletes is that it's allowed to be fun. We are going to work hard and have great results, but don't forget the fun part. We had a color run for the first time ever yesterday and then we went out and hit a set of challenging 200s on the dirt. We can have both. I don't want to make it sound like we are the "fun" program and don't challenge ourselves. These athletes work extremely hard at what they do.

4) When you took over St. Francis in 2022, what did you see in the program that you wanted to preserve, and what did you want to change? What do you think makes St. Francis different from other high-level girls' cross-country programs in Northern California? What does a successful season look like to you beyond winning a section championship? What are the biggest challenges of maintaining a championship-level program year after year?
The culture was the biggest thing I wanted to change about the program. Before I got there, they forgot how to have fun and they weren't together as a team. We work on being all one team quite a bit, it's never perfect and always a work in progress but it's pretty drama free for the most part and they have a good time. We have some transfers that have come in for the first time this season and one of the things that one pointed out to me is that they have never seen this many girls working hard together. The work level is pretty high from our top girls down to throughout the roster. There are a bunch of girls working on their results and looking for that improvement. I think in a lot of top programs you have a few girls working hard at the top but some of the others are sometimes forgotten or aren’t doing work. Our coaches take pride in the fact that we honestly care about everyone’s results. 

Success beyond championships to me is that the girls had some PRs, they are happy and they want to come back and do it again. I also take a lot of pride in sending girls off to run in College. Their academic needs and athletic needs don't always match up for them to run in college but when they do, it's exciting to try and follow their college progress and get to talk to them about their experience when they come back.

I think the key to having a successful season year after year is partially due to having coaches that are willing to be engaged nearly year round. Without Coach Melanie, Coach Clint, and Coach Bruns we wouldn't be able to do all the things that we do from the Day Camp, to Summer practice, and to our traveling meet schedule. The coaches point in the right direction and with our culture the way that we have built it up now, the girls follow, show up and put in the work.

5) Who are the coaches that had a big impact on you as an athlete, as well as mentors for you as a coach? What's the best piece of coaching advice that you have ever received?
That's a tough one. I have had some coaches negatively impact me, and I won't name those, but because of some of those experiences it reminds me that I want to not make those mistakes and be a better coach then what I had. After college, I was self coached for many years but the first coach that really got me into distance running was the legendary Jim Hunt who was our coach at Sierra College in my first year as a distance runner. He had retired from coaching a couple of times but couldn't give it up because he loved it so much. That rubbed off on several of us, including my wife who is the Head Coach of Rio Americano HS and myself. Without Jim Hunt our lives would have turned out much differently. He shows us how to love the sport.

It's been over 30 years since I've actually had a coach so I can't think of a specific piece of coaching advice that I have been given but more of an emotion. Coaches that I have had along the way that show that glimpse of how to coach a team and how to love the process.

6) You've had success at schools with very different circumstances and program histories. What have you learned about building a cross-country program that you didn't understand when you first started coaching?
I've coached college, High School, middle school and we have our youth team for the last 18 years as well and I think the biggest thing I try to do with building a program is not try to be a dictator and if I am serious about it but also laid back and enjoy it, they will do. I try not to scare anyone off but we want all of them right away to know that we are going to work hard and running isn't for everyone and that's OK. But we want them there if they want to run and make that effort and the improvements will show from that. 

7) Walk me through what an ideal week looks like for one of your varsity runners during the heart of the season. How does your training change as you get closer to the section meet and then the state meet? What do you emphasize most before a championship race? How do you teach athletes to race tactically rather than simply run by pace? How do you prepare athletes for the mental side of championship racing?
We do our biggest mileage in the offseason, we have some of our experienced Junior girls that peaked at 60 miles per week for a couple of weeks. But during the heart of the season we don't get anywhere in there. We have a very busy race season with 12 races over 12 weeks (one week with two races, one week with no races) so we aren't doing super high mileage or really challenging workouts. A race week one of our top athletes would be between 35 and 40 miles with a workout in there. If we have a Saturday race then it's something like this:

Monday Short bodyweight strength routine, 6-8 miles easy + 4x100 Strides, short HIIT session
Tuesday 6-8 miles easy with Speed Development (5x150 fast or something similar)
Wednesday Workout Day, 2 mile warmup, drills, 5x1K (first three tempo pace, last two hard), 2 mile cooldown
Thursday 6 miles Easy
Friday 4 miles + 4x100 Strides
Saturday 1.5 mile warmup, drills, race, 2 mile cooldown
Sunday Off

The week will vary a bit depending on the importance of the race. I have learned over the years not to taper too much with the top group because the results will sometimes turn out flat in big races. We might reduce the longest run of the week down to 6 miles but that's about the only changes. We don't repeat a bunch of our workouts and I love having variety for them. I had a college coach that made us do 300s almost every single week and it just killed me. So I try to bring the variety but once we are in an important race week like Sections or State, I will look back and see what workout this particular group responded to during the season and put that back in.

For big races we spend some time trying to remind them to take it all in, look around, enjoy what's happening. If you get into Woodbridge or State and have the blinders on and so focused on your race you are going to miss the fun parts. There are no big hype speeches on the day of big meets because they are already piling so much pressure on themselves. In the days leading up to a big race we will talk about certain points of the courses and remind them that it's not harder than anything they have done in training. For the mental side it's just finding ways to release the pressure. Usually I will try to point out something funny I have seen at the meet or talk about something else just to give them time to NOT think about that big moment for a brief second and just tell them to relax and hang out with their friends and talk before the meet. Little positive comments along the way can help anyone. 

They already know that they have to win the little races around them so we don't really spend much time on tactics versus pace. Usually if they can hit their course PR then they are in a good place scoring for the team. But if we have a particular team that we know will be the biggest challenge then we will figure out what their uniform is so that gives them that extra motivation if one of them is around them.

8)  When you look at a freshman, what tells you that she could eventually become a high-level varsity runner? 
We get such a big range of Freshman girls that come into the program. Some have been running since they were seven and some are just starting when they join us. For some like Alyssa Gutierrez, she had already run 5:12 for 1600 as an 8th grader so you know she's going to do something special. But girls all develop at a different rate and their progress isn't linear like most boys are so it's not very predictable. We've had girls that had trouble finishing races their Freshman year end up being on our State XC teams Senior year. With our Freshman we are doing our best to develop them and not just push them to their limit and it seems to work out pretty well. I often remind myself that we have them for four years so write the training accordingly. 

9) What do you wish more high school athletes understood about the college recruiting process? How do you help athletes decide whether they're ready for a demanding college running program? What are the biggest misconceptions high school runners have about running in college? What should a talented sophomore or junior be doing now if she wants to run competitively in college?
The recruiting process is pretty stressful for High School athletes because it's such an important decision for them. I wish they knew that they are allowed to reach out to coaches and communicate with them. College coaches want to hear from you and if they don't then that's OK and you won't end up there. It doesn't hurt to reach out. I think the fear of rejection stops some athletes from doing those emails.

I would love it if all my athletes ran in college but I know that's not always the case. Some get into colleges for their academics that they aren't quite at that level in their running. So many other factors come into play when choosing a college: academics, location, weather, campus, housing situation, someone told me they loved the food on their visit and that was a factor, and of course the team. 

My daughter is now a college coach so I get the opportunity to hear about how the recruiting process works from her end. It gives me another perspective for athletes to take care of the little things and be prepared for that phone call with questions. Talk to the coach, not one word responses they want to hear from you, ask questions.

Anyone that wants to, can run in college. It's just a matter of matching academics to teams. Any Sophomores or Juniors that want to run in college should be reaching out to coaches. The easy way is to go to that team's website and fill out the athletic questionnaire. That puts you on their radar, that's how they know you are interested, that puts you on a list. Then you can write the email. As you get more PRs or big results, send those to the college coaches. Those college coaches will rank you on a list based on PRs, the phone calls, and what they learn about you. Don't be afraid to post all your good stuff about your running on Social Media. Follow the teams on Instagram that you are interested in and hopefully they will follow you back.

10) You have written two books, most recently XC Level Up Coaching. Tell us a little bit about the books and what inspired you to write them. Where could we purchase those books?
Thanks for the promo, lol. Yes I have two books and they are both available on Amazon, I self published both. It started with my first one Average to Elite which was kind of my story of my own running background. I felt like my story was a unique one and I enjoyed writing it. It took me about 10 years to finally put the final touches on it. I just wanted people that were interested to be able to read how I started as a distance runner in Junior College trying to break 23 minutes for 5K and eventually be able to run 2:22 in the Marathon and go on to the U.S. Olympic Trials. I have the exact training log I used in the book from my best year in 2002.

The second book, XC Level Up Coaching, I try to find things to read and study, especially in the offseason about how to coach Cross Country and distance running for high school athletes. I don't feel like there are a ton of resources out there that actually spell out exactly what teams have done to get better. This one felt easy to write because I was just typing a bunch of the stuff I wanted to share and hopefully provide coaches another resource to help their teams. I added several training plans in there from teams that I have coached at various levels. 

11) If you were hired tomorrow to build a competitive high school program from scratch, what would you do during the first two years?
This is one of those questions that is very tough to answer, but I would start with numbers. You have to have kids to coach. My first school had 14 kids on the team (boys and girls) the year before I started and we spread the word, went and talked to PE classes and we had 45 kids a couple of weeks into the season. The next thing we would do is run consistently. You don't get better and XC by playing games or going to the movies, you do it by running every day, six days per week and building that up. Then of course I would find help, no coach should be doing it alone. Find some assistants that are willing to help and share the passion for distance running. As coaches if you are willing to put in the time, you can build a good team. If you just show up at practice and wing it, your team won't see the same level of improvement and growth. 

12) Anything else you would like to add?
As a coach of 32 years I find myself in a spot where I want to help other coaches. I have no secrets anymore and nothing I do is revolutionary, it's just consistency and time. I have coaches that reach out to me with questions sometimes and I like to help. If someone has questions about anything I have done or written, just reach out. Good luck and I'm looking forward to what should be hopefully a historic season for our program. Thank you.

More Time Trial results (also Invitational results)

Davis HS (1600)
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/280516/results/all

Monte Vista and California HS (3200)
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/279231/results/all

Miramonte HS (1.5mi)
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/272960/info

Foothill/Granada Scrimmage
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/280108/results/all

Not a Time Trial but a race. Flame Invite
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/272916/results/all

Sierra Invitational
https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/272731/results/all

If you know of other time trial results, please list the link in the comment section below and I will add it to this post.

West Coast XC

This coming season, West Coast XC will once again cover the great states of California, Oregon, and Washington. You can check out the website at https://www.westcoastxc.com/. You can find articles, photos, and lots of coverage there.

West Coast XC webmaster Ken Martinez also posts weekly podcasts on YouTube, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/@WestCoastXC

There will be an upcoming podcast with a preview of NorCal teams and individuals.

Feel free to reach out to Ken on his website to give him kudos or share whatever you like about the upcoming season.

NorCal top returning runners (boys and girls)

Below is a list of runners ranked by their combined Woodward Park course, 1600, and 3200 times from the 2025/2026 school year. If I missed anybody, please add their names in the comment section below, and I will look up their times.

Top 10 Boys
1) Cooper Stream 12 Vacaville 14:48.4, 4:06.03, 8:50.62 (27:45.05)
2) Elias Thronson 11 Davis 14:54.3, 4:09.67, 9:01.79 (28:05.76)
3) Clark Gregory 12 Campolindo 14:57.7, 4:22.68, 9:11.5 (28:31.88)
4) Matthew Ogilvie 12 Jesuit 15:22.9, 4:09.25, 9:01.02 (28:33.17)
5) Landon Warriner 12 McClatchy 15:17.4, 4:12.54, 9:08.65 (28:38.59)
6) Djali De Chalus 12 St. Mary's College 15:18.7. 4:19.02, 9:02.44 (28:40.16)
7) Caden Ehrhorn 11 Campolindo 15:19.7, 4:10.61, 9:10.8 (28:41.11)
8) Evan Chopra 12 Menlo Atherton 15:18.9, 4:10.19, 9:14.32 (28:43.41)
9) Deven Koppola 12 Mountain View 15:18.9, 4:23.94, 9:06.19 (28:49.03)
10) Lucas Alberts 12 Jesuit 15:17.6, 4:07.61, 9:33.5 (28:58.71)

Honorable Mention
Ty Hundley 12 Vacaville 15:27.3, 4:16.99, 9:15.27 (28:59.56)
Conrad Chern 12 Crystal Springs 15:27.1, 4:23.79, 9:14.68 (29:05.57)
Nikola Van Delft 12 Campolindo 15:24.5, 4:25.2, 9:17.3 (29:07)
Rohan Iyer 11 Milpitas 15:40.2, 4:20.70, 9:10.49 (29:11.39)
Gavin Gunn 12 Campolindo 15:35.1, 4:21.49, 9:17.8 (29:14.39)
Liam Tassa 10 Mountain View 15:46.2, 4:15.23, 9:14.37 (29:15.80)
Hugh Heyer 12 McClatchy 15:40.6, 4:11.86, 9:24.4 (29:16.86)
Yuval Goldberg 12 Mountain View 15:36.8, 4:24.34, 9:16.55 (29:17.69)
Henry Hauser 12 Menlo 15:29.8, 4:08.42, No 3200 time

Top 10 Girls
1) Alyssa Gutierrez 10 St. Francis, SJ 17:17.6, 4:53.30, 10:15.15 (32:26.05)
2) Farah Allen 12 Branson 17:17.0, 4:48.09, 10:38.68 (32:43.77)
3) Brooke Oliveira 12 Castilleja 17:58.2 (from 2024), 4:47.57, 10:21.04 (33:06.81)
4) Norah Feldt 12 Davis 17:59.3, 4:48.56, 10:32.46 (33:20.32)
5) Gelila Hailu 12 Leigh 17:44.1, 4:55.66, 10:42.66 (33:22.42)
6) Ashlin Mallon 12 Cardinal Newman 17:48.5, 4:58.98,10:44.6 (33:32.08)
7) Nadya Makarova 11 Monte Vista 18:04.0, 4:57.28, 10:34.70 (33:35.98)
8) Sade Bumpus 12 Granada 17:52.6, 4:56.62, 10:50.01 (33:39.23)
9) Ellison Williams 11 St. Francis, SJ 17:52.9, 5:06.16, 10:41.22 (33:40.28)
10) Hannah Shehorn 12 Scotts Valley 17:44.1, 5:08.98, 10:48.71 (33:41.79)

Honorable Mention
Maddie Goss 11 Woodcreek 17:47.3, 5:01.38, 10:55.87 (33:44.55)
Emmy Angelo 12 Ponderosa 17:53.6, 5:07.24, 10:44.06 (33:44.90)
Josie Hill 12 Sonoma Academy 18:02.9, 4:50.56, 10:52.22 (33:45.68)
Olivia Joseph 12 Northgate 18:03.6, 4:58.08, 10:45.95 (33:47.63)
Kaylie O'Connell 11 Monte Vista 18:08.2, 5:03.80, 10:44.86 (33:56.86)
Dakota Saenz 11 Berkeley 18:21.20, 4:58.69, 10:36.97 (33:56.86)
Macy Mullins 11 Foothill 18:13.9, 5:02.40, 10:47.52 (34:03.82)
Ada Bielinska 12 Mountain View 18:46.8, 4:58.07, 10:27.11 (34:11.98)
Paula Devine 12 St. Mary's College No Woodward Park time, 4:53.17, 10:51.90 
Julie Plummer 10 Pleasant Valley 17:47.5, No track times

NorCal wrap up

DyeStat's Doug Binder has released his Top 10 teams to watch at this point in the summer. You can find the boys' list at this LINK and the girls' at this LINK. The Campolindo boys were included as the 9th-best team and the top team in California.

Another nationally ranked team is the St. Francis, SJ girls. According to tullyrunners.com, St. Francis, SJ is the 12th best team in the nation. They just completed their Trial of the Troubies today, and you can find the results at this LINK. They were also featured on WestCoastXC's YouTube page at this LINK.

The best boys' team in California over the past two seasons, Jesuit, also held its Meeting of the Marauders today, and you can find their results at this LINK.

If you have other links and/or information that I can add to this page, please feel free to add it in the comment section below or you can email me at albertjcaruana@gmail.com

Crystal Springs Course 2nd Cleanup on Saturday, August 22nd from 8am to 12pm

Headed by Serra HS coach Jim Marheineke, the 2nd Crystal Springs course clean-up will take place this coming Saturday from 8am to 12pm. All hands on deck, and your help is greatly appreciated. The Crystal Springs course is one of the truly historical cross-country courses in this country, dating back to the early 70s. It will host the Central Coast Section meet once again this year, as well as other notable Invitationals and many league finals. 

The flyer with all the info for the cleanup is available at this LINK.
The sign-up form, which includes the release of liability, is available at this LINK. 

Please help spread the word.

Throwback interview with Lowell coach, Andy Leong

This interview was posted on April 15, 2015, featuring longtime Lowell HS coach Andy Leong. Aside from coaching Cross Country and Track and Field, Coach Leong also hosts one of the most popular early-season invitationals at Golden Gate Park, the Lowell Invitational. Since the interview, Coach Leong has returned to coaching the cross country team and Lowell also upgraded to an all-weather track in the fall of 2016.

1) What was your own running experience (before, during, and after high school)? What other sports did you play? Highlights and proudest accomplishments?

I started playing organized sports in 3rd grade. I played basketball at the boys' club and PAL baseball. In 7th grade, I went out for basketball and track teams at my school and my neighborhood CYO baseball team. In 8th grade, I was on the baseball and track team for my school and played CYO basketball. In 9th grade, I was on the baseball, basketball, soccer, and track teams as well as the CYO teen league basketball team. I started high school at Lowell and played basketball there through my junior year. I ran cross country and track from 10th to 12 grades. In track, I high jumped (5'8"), ran the 880 (2:12 soph year), and mile (5:03 on 11 miles a week senior year). My proudest accomplishment was winning the SF section cross country championship my senior year (I was the 5th man and captain).

2) You competed at San Francisco State after high school. Harry Marra was the coach at the time, and for those who don't know him, he is the coach of decathlon world record holder, Ashton Eaton. Do you have any good (funny) Harry stories?

Harry was a ball of energy. I loved running for him. I was not the fastest runner on the team, but he treated me like I was. With his encouragement, I was able to run faster than I ever had before. We also had some great talks. During the Olympics, when NBC played a video of Harry talking with Ashton, hearing his voice brought me chills, and I felt like he was talking to me again. He taught me so much about being prepared as an athlete and as a person. The funniest story I can recall regarding Harry was during the season it rained a lot it would always seem to clear up at practice time. Harry would say he had a connection with the man upstairs and that all he had to do was invest one thin dime on a phone call.

3) What led you into coaching? What else do you do aside from coaching? Where was your first coaching experience?

When I graduated from SF State, I could only find a part-time job, and so I had extra time. Having organized three very competitive intramural basketball teams at SF State and with a strong understanding of basketball concepts during my playing days, I had always considered coaching basketball, so when my high school track coach, James Thomas, took over the girls' basketball program, I asked him if I could help him as a volunteer. Two years later, Coach Thomas was asked to return to head the track team, and he asked if I wanted to get paid to coach. I jumped at the chance. Two seasons later, he said that the track program was mine, and I've been here ever since. When I'm not coaching, I'm an accountant for a real estate investment company in Burlingame.

4) Looking back at your first few years as a coach, what did you learn from that experience?

When I first started coaching track, I tried giving the runners the workouts I did in college. I toned them down but after a season or two, I realized I needed to tone them down even more because they struggled to finish the workouts. As I went to clinics and started reading more on the sport, I began to develop a series of workouts and the philosophy that I use for every season. I was also very short tempered in my early years and would go off at the smallest thing but with experience came more calmness so (hopefully), I'm not the wild person I was when I started. However, I can go there when I need to.

5) What was the state of the Lowell program when you started coaching there? Who were the athletes during the first few years who bought into your program and were rewarded with success?

Since the 1980's, Lowell has always been one of the top track schools in the San Francisco Section for both boys and girls. Our girls' success has been stronger than that of the boys. We have only lost the girls' section championship twice since 1978. During my first year coaching in 1988, we won both the boys' championship (tied with McAteer High, our first championship since 1949) and the girls' championship, but it would be nine years before we did that again in 1997. We then began our 14 year streak of winning both the boys' and girls' sectional titles. Though we have always been the big fish in our little pond, our runners were only average outside our section at best in those early years. Our section champions did not do very well at the state meet. I wanted to change that by giving my runners the opportunity to face better competition than what our small section offered. I was determined to make our runners the best they could be but I also knew I was not going to make just anybody into a state meet level runner. I hoped that one day we would get an athlete with some talent. That time came around 1994 when runners like Logan Hiroshima (5:08 1600 meters), Oasii Lucero (11:11 3200 meters, 5:08 1600) meters, Susan Chou (our section's first female state meet medal winner in cross country, 10:54.86 3200 meters, 5:04.33 1600 meters), Myesha Kirtman (56.79 400 meters,43.36 300 hurdles), Jennifer Akana (2 time state meet cross country medal winner, 3 time state meet 1600 meter finalize, 4:55.61 1600 meters, 10:41.0 3200 meters) and Sopagna Eap (11:28 3200 meters, 5:18 1600 meters, two time All America at UC Davis) came to Lowell.

6) Looking at your coaching career, who have or are currently mentors for you as a coach and what have you learned from each of them?

James Thomas, who is currently my hurdle coach, has been my main mentor. He has taught me to coach basketball, cross country and track. I learned the paper work side of coaching from Jim and how to place athletes in the best possible situation. Lloyd Wilson (currently an assistant at Sacred Heart Cathedral) and the late Herb Blanchard have also been mentors. Lloyd taught me to be honest with runners. Herb taught me that the first rule of coaching when you have an elite athlete is to not mess things up. I definitely learned a lot from Harry Marra (preparation, mental toughness etc.), Kevin Cruikshank (distance runners' mentality) and Mike Orechia (hurdling, staying focus) during my SF State days. Ken Reeves (former Nordhoff coach), Peter Brewer (Castro Valley and Northgate coach) and Ron DiMaggio (Westmoor coach) are people I love talking to about our sport and have always been open to share their opinion with me.

7) You coached the Lowell XC team for 15 years before losing that position to an on campus teacher/coach in 2005. Did you ever consider coaching XC at another school? Is there any chance you could coach the XC team again in the future?

After five seasons of not coaching in the fall, I decided to return to my original sport of basketball and started helping the girls program at Washington High. A season later, there was an opportunity to coach cross country at Balboa where I felt I could help one of their outstanding runners reach her full potential. When I asked some of my Lowell runners what they thought of me coaching cross country at another school, they ask me not to. It was then that I realized that continuing to coach basketball was the best situation as the chances of going against one of my track runners was low. As for the future, I've gotten use to not coaching year round and have discovered I have more energy during the track season than before. However I would be open to coach cross country again if given the chance.

8) Your girls DMR team finished 2nd at the just completed Stanford Invitational (photo to the left). What did you think your girls could run before the meet and what did they end up running? Will they be competing at Arcadia this coming weekend and if so what events are they doing?

I calculated that we could run 12:18, but I also knew that on a perfect day, we would have a chance to break a school record (12:00.29), I once thought to be untouchable. After the outstanding individual performance at Stanford on Saturday, I think we have a good shot of going under 12 minutes at Arcadia. Here we will also run the 4x800 on Friday, and Kristen Leung will be running in the day meet mile.

9) You have had a lot of success with many distance runners at Lowell. What do you feel are the primary reasons for that success?

At Lowell, we get the hardest-working kids. To get into our school, you need to have maintained exceptional grades since 7th grade and score highly on an entrance exam. They already know what hard work means by the time they arrive at our school, but no matter how hard-working they are, they need to have talent to go far. We have been fortunate to have that talent at our school, especially in the last 5 years. I also believe that I'm using a formula and series of workouts that have proven successful.

10) What does a typical training week look like for your runners from Monday through Saturday? Weights? Typical mileage?

Monday is long run day, especially if they raced the previous Saturday. Tuesday is track interval (we have a hard dirt track so we usually go to another school for this). Wednesday I separate the group into Saturday meet group and Thursday meet group. The Saturday group will run 50 minutes while the Thursday group will pre meet (about 2 miles). Thursday is league meet day (the Saturday runners will do either another track work out or a tempo run). Friday is pre meet day or 30 minute run and weight room. Compare to other schools, I coach on the low mileage side (25 to 30 miles for girls, 35 to 50 miles for boys), but our track intervals are run at a high intense level. We try to get into the weight room once a week and we work on are strength (pushups) all season.

11) What would you say are some of your key workouts for your 800m runners? What about your 1600m. runners? 3200m. runners?

I try to train all the distance runners to run all three races. On a typical interval day we start the workout at 3200 pace. Then we change it to 1600 pace and end the day at 800 pace or faster.

12) What do you say to the people who feel that schools in the SF and Oakland sections should be dissolved into other sections?

With the at-large marks and both sections now having minimum requirements to run at the state meet, this subject has become moot. There was a time I wanted to be a part of the CCS, but I have no control over that, and it's also been about 18 years since the last time I heard of any talk of that happening. When I started coaching, I didn't like to hear people say we shouldn't be a section. I knew that our coaches were doing the best they could with the students we had. They wanted our spot in track, but what they failed to realize was that this involved more than track. It involved other sports as well. This is also a money issue. As a public school, we survived on fundraising. We used to get $300 a season from the district budget and had only 2 paid coaches. It's slightly better now: our district budget has triple, we have more bus transportation and we have another coaching position. Through years of work, I was able to build a good cross country invitational to support all of our activities and I have a wonderful race director (Steve Woo of the San Francisco Turkey Trot) who has chosen our team as a main benefactor for his annual race. They also didn't know the obstacles we faced that are unique to San Francisco. We don't have the nice weather that other parts of the bay area have. It's cold a lot and the two tracks we train on can be really windy. We are a school with a good track team, but guess what? We don't have a usable track. Our track has no header board and is too hard to constantly train on. Our last track meet on our campus was in 1991. And to top it off, I now hear our district will not support putting a track on our campus.

13) During your tenure as a coach at Lowell, what are some of your proudest achievements by your teams and individuals?

In 1989 and 1996, the boys team that took 2nd place at our section championships losing by only 5 points. They gave it everything they had and left it on the track. In 1997, the girls team was probably the best ever as that team feature Jennifer Akana (State 1600 meter 3rd place), Susan Chou (3200 meter 10th place in 10:54.86) and Myesha Kirtman (10th place 300 hurdles). In 2010, the boys & girls team because I had 6 to 8 of our best athletes give up relay spots and learn new individual events to win the section championships. Jennifer and Susan during their time at Lowell as they were a big reason for the success we had during this period (best D1 Nor Cal team in Cross country 1996 & 1997, cross country individual top 10 finish, two DMR times in the national top 10 performances list in 1997, school records in the 1600, 3200, 4x 800, DMR and 4x1600). Jin Daikoku placed 2nd in the 1600 at the 2000 state meet 48 hours after catching a cold. Anna Li who went from a scared freshman section champion to a state level contender during her senior year. In 2008, the girls 4x 400 team of Echi Anoruo, Latasha Allston, Tamara Purpura and Katherine Jarvis who placed 10th at the state meet just missing advancing to the finals. Tamara Purpura took 5th in the 800 meters in 2009. Leo Harrington after getting injured in late March 2011, ran in a swimming pool the rest of the season and was able to win the 1600 at our section championship. William Chen, who at our 2012 section championship won the 1600, 800, 3200 and anchor the 4x400 relay to victory 20 minutes after the 3200 win. His times were 4:27.65, 1:59.61, 10:09.52, & 50.91 anchor split. Max Niehaus ran a 4.32 second PR to qualify for the 2013 800 state finals in 1:53.26. John Hogan ran 4:11.42 to place 7th in the 2014 1600 state finals. My distance relay teams in 2014. It was the first time I had top rank 4x800 and DMR teams in both genders during the same year.

14) Anything else you would like to add.

Thanks for asking me to do this. I had a good time recalling such great memories.

Mountain View boys in the lead with 40% of the votes. Vacaville in 2nd with Campolindo in 3rd.