Dan Napieralski (Oakmont, Rosevelle)

One of a number of strong runners and teams from the Sac Joaquin Section is Dan Napieralski, the leader of the Oakmont (Roseville) squad this Fall. He started his season with a fine fourth place in the Granite Bay/ASICS Invite this past weekend. We asked him to take the time to answer some questions about his running. He talks of summer training, last year's track season, what's ahead this season, some goals, and what advice he would have for rookie runners. As a super measure of improvement check his two-year development from ninth to eleventh grade!!! Quite impressive!

Thanks Dan - Best of Luck - Doug Speck

1) Dan, how did your summer of training go and basically what did you do during that period to make yourself a better runner?

-- During the summer me and my team mates would usally run anywhere between 40-to 50 miles a week, Usually We would work out harder on Mondays and and Wednesdays, (We would do track repeats, and timed runs) and we would just do easy distance to rest of the week, our longest runs would be about 8 miles. I ran one race over the summer, is was the Friday night series by the American River, my time was 15:57. The only bad thing that happened was that our 6th guy got shin splints two weeks before the Granit Bay invite.

2) Describe your track season and your successes there--

-- My Track sesson last year started out good on my first race I ran a 4:26 and won the BOB KING Granit bay invite, but then a couple of weeks later, at the Stanford Invite, After I ran a 4:22 mile and a 8:52 3,000m I hurt my knee, and was not able to train for most of the season, but at Section finals I was able to run a 1:56 800.
Also out second guy Mike Wells got hit by a car and was out for the end of the sesson.

3) Briefly, what was the week of workouts leading up to Granite Bay Invite like?

--Before the Invite I had a tough workout on Monday, and on Wednesday I did repeat miles on the Serria College corse, the rest of the days we just easy distance.

4) What big meets do you have coming up?

-- Coming up I have the Cowchip Classic, Stanford, and Clovis.

5) What are some of your goals for the coming season?

-- My goals are to win the State meet for D3, Break 15:40 and to go to Natonals in the Foot Locker Championships.

7) Any advice for beginning runners in high school?

-- My advice to begenning runners is to never give up and to always keep trying, if You work hard you will get better, My Freshman year my PR in the 2mile was 12:08 and my mile was 5:36
Last year in Track I ran a 4:22 mile and a 9:28 two mile

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