Runner of the Month: HS Boys WIAA 1600 Meter Runners

RUNRACEWA is excited to announce the HS Boys 1600 Meter Runners from the WIAA State Track and Field Championships as its Runner of the Month for May. In looking at the results, May was a phenomenal month for track and field both on the high school and collegiate level with a great number of athletes performing at a high level. Additionally, Dan McLean, Uli Steidl, Megan Heuer and Claudia Copeland all posted some impressive victories last month at big road races. Joseph Gray continued his winning ways and ran superbly as he claimed several victories on both the roads and the trails; however, the fast times and depth of the Boys 1600 meter races at both states meets were possibly the fastest times amassed in state history and the results themselves is a great testament to the coaching, talent, dedication and development in our state.

For comparisons sake, in the 2011 WIAA year-end rankings only one runner broke 4:11 for 1600 meters. Forward to May of 2012, 10 athletes ran between 4:04 and 4:11.29 for 1600 meters. In one calendar year that is a phenomenal improvement and bodes well for the future as three of those performances were from underclassman. Looking beyond the borders of our state, California has long been known to, almost annually, produce busloads of talented 1600 meter runners/milers, though this year the State of Washington overtook that status as statistical analysis shows almost a 14 second advantage when combining the Top 10 1600 meter times from each state. The numbers also show over a one second advantage per runner for the Evergreen State and put Washington’s Top 10 average at 4:08.61 for 1600 meters while California’s Top 10 failed to crack 4:10, with an average of 4:10.01. 

State	Grade	Athlete	Time	State	Grade	Athlete	Time
WA	12	Izaic Yorks	4:04.00a	CA	11	Cody Brazeal	4:07.72a
WA	12	Nathan Weitz	4:05.60a	CA	12	Darren Fahy	4:08.15a
WA	12	Marcus Dickson	4:05.83a	CA	12	Luis Gutierrez	4:08.68a
WA	10	Joe Hardy	4:09.29a	CA	10	Blake Haney	4:10.04a
WA	12	Korey Krotzer	4:09.61a	CA	12	Thomas Joyce	4:10.35a
WA	11	Andrew Gardner	4:09.71a	CA	12	Austin O'neil	4:10.54a
WA	12	Conor McCandless	4:09.72a	CA	11	Daniel De La Torre	4:10.74a
WA	12	Jacob Smith	4:10.40a	CA	12	Billy Gaudreau	4:11.12a
WA	12	Anthony Armstrong	4:10.72a	CA	11	Juan Gonzalez	4:11.28a
WA	11	Patrick Gibson	4:11.29a	CA	12	Nicholas Woolf	4:11.57a

To further illustrate the presence of 1600 meter runners/milers in Washington state, at the Adidas Dream Mile in New York City on June 9^th, Marcus Dickson and Izaic Yorks ran 4:03.18 and 4:04.38 respectively to finish 5^th and 8^th in the most prestigious high school mile race in the United States. Dickson’s time was a personal best and helped place Washington ahead of California again as their best finisher was Blake Haney at 4:09.43 in 13^th place.

Kudos to all of the HS Boys WIAA 1600 meter runners, their teammates, coaches and parents as May was a great month and the culmination of a thousands of miles of hard work.