MileSplit Fast Four: A weekly glimpse at four of our nation's best
Each week here at MileSplit we will be giving you a quick look at four of the nation's best runners in our new feature called MileSplit Fast Four. Featured this week are Joash Osoro (ND), Alex Dunne (CA), Andrew Springer (RI) and Kaitlin Hanenburg (CO).
Joash Osoro
St. Mary Central/Bismarck H.S.
Bismarck, ND
Highlights: Attends St. Mary Central, a private school which does not have cross country, so he runs as a co-op athlete for Bismarck in the fall … Osoro (photo courtesy of Dave Zittleman) arrived from Kenya in the summer of 2005 and played soccer as a freshman … Osoro placed second at the North Dakota State Cross Country Finals as a sophomore, before winning back-to-back individual crowns the last two seasons … Placed first at the Roy Griak Invitational in 15:37 … Won the NTN Heartland Regional with a time of 15:40 in 2007 … Finished 18th at the FL Midwest Regional in 2007
Coach (Dave Zittleman) says: “He’s come a long ways in three years. He keeps getting better. He has a bright future. He absolutely loves to train. He’s not afraid to put in 70-mile weeks. If you can get a kid that’s born to run that loves to go out and train, racing is going to be easy. He really gears up for practice and he’s not afraid to go out and do the morning runs. He does great things for our program. He’s been a great leader.”
Osoro says: “It was a great feeling to win the individual and the team title too; that was the goal coming into the season. In track I never really put in a lot of miles a week. Now I don’t go a day without running because it’s such a great feeling and I have fun doing it. I knew from last summer how much I improved by putting in the mileage.”
Summer mileage (max): 84
Weekly mileage: 70-75
Training shoes: Saucony Pro-Grid
Race day superstitions: None
Hobbies: Video games, basketball
Favorite movie: Run Fatboy Run