States- The Altoona Boys

Trainstation, this is the first in hopefully a series of race summaries about this past Saturday's state meet. I've been in contact with a lot of people so far and I have already gotten some great feedback. Anyone else who wants to contribute their opinion/experience please let me know. Any additions will really help improve the blog and help future runners learn how to run a difficult state meet and course.

Now on to our first summary. Altoona was a top 5 team in the state a year ago, and had a very nice showing at the NXN regional meet, including a national qualifying performance from state meet runner up Wade Endress. Although Wade grabbed a lot of headlines last fall, he continually mentioned his young teammates and how they would be state contenders the following fall. Korey Replogle and Dylan Mountain certainly lived up to that hype this season. Korey,the 25th place finisher from 2010, and Dylan, the 115th finisher from 2010, both had impressive finishes at various invitationals this year. Dylan had some early season invite golds before sickness struck him at Carlisle and Korey began his climb back up the rankings finishing well at both Carlisle and Paul Short. At Tri States and Districts Mountain and Replogle traded top finishes, and both came into states confident.

Unfortunately, snow was not in the plans of most district meet organizers and the District 6 meet was not on its normal day (Saturday) but instead was held on Monday. 2 less days of rest for two top 10 caliber runners. 2 less days to fine tune their training and prepare for the biggest meet of the season.

But the Altoona boys were not men of excuses. Korey came into the race, a rough pre meet night complete with a soar throat and lack of sleep behind him, staying confident in the pre race warm up. Within the race, however, a lot of the negative factors he was facing added up. "I just never made a move it felt like the same race as last year for me. I didn't make any moves to push myself which sucks because I know I could have done a lot better than what I showed but I guess I just have to move on and make the best of it now." Korey said about his race. He still managed a 24th place finish and his second state medal, an achievement few can boast about. He managed to dig down deep and pass two runners on the finishing straightaway to guarentee his spot on the medal podium.

For Dylan, the race was all about redemption from a year ago. The confidence he gained from running extremely well at the Tri State meet and the determination he had to perform above expectations motivated him during his pre race warm up at Hershey. It was a hard experience last year, even when Dylan felt like he was moving quickly, he was still getting passed. So this year had to be different. Dylan ran a tough race, finding himself closing in on his goal coming down the steep downhill towards the finish at Hershey he was sitting in 9th place. But just like Korey, things caught up to Dylan and a large group chased him down and went by, pinning him in the back of a pack he would not be able to fight back through.

Even in his most painful moments of the race, Dylan pushed onward, remembering his race a year ago. Ultimately his perserverance paid off in a 21st place finish and his first state medal. A memory which he says he will remember forever.

Both Dylan and Korey are considering running the Footlocker Regional meet as a form of redemption for their slightly disappointing finishes at the state championship. The duo of Joe Kush and Juris Silienks comes to mind when thinking of these two runners and their similar quest for redemption.

There are certainly big things in these two runners future, not only if these chose to run the Footlocker Regional meet, but also on the track, where each runner feels they can run much faster than ever before.