Putting in the miles

In the Mercer Health 5Ks this summer, New Bremen's Zach Wiedeman was head and shoulders above the competition.

Heading into his junior year, Wiedeman earned 66 series points, 16 above Marion Local's Noah Budde in the boys 15-19 division, and won the first four races outright.

"Saturdays I would race and see how I progressed over the summer, just racing with other people I would normally be racing against during the year," Wiedeman said. "Guys from Marion and from my team would be racing the 5Ks with me, so I would know where other people were at too."

Coming off a 74th-place finish in the 2021 Division III state cross country tournament, Wiedeman ran around 40 miles a week over the summer before competing on Saturdays. He beat Celina's Colin Buening by 40 seconds in the Zuma 5K on June 18, came in a full minute ahead of Marion Local's Troy Stucke in the Country Fest 5K a week later, then held off Celina grad Cole Mertz in the Redskin Classic in St. Henry before another 50-second victory over Stucke at Shane's Crossing in Rockford.

After skipping the St. Clair 5K, he came in third at the Lake Festival 5K with his slowest time of the summer before finishing second at Coldwater's Buzzard's Glory 5K on Aug. 6.

"I kind of treated them as a time trial, to see where I stood," Wiedeman said. "Most of the races, I wasn't too worried about beating certain people, I just wanted to see how fast I could push myself. More part of training, I guess."

Standings aside, Wiedeman's times were quite favorable. In the Buzzard's Glory 5K, he came in a full 30 seconds ahead of his 17:08 state tournament time.

With a full season of running ahead and the benefit of fall temperatures, Wiedeman can expect to improve further. Coach Jason Barhorst looks for at least 30 seconds of improvement from that 17:08 mark last season, and Wiedeman has his eye on the school record of 16:09.

"I'm hoping to get in the low 16s, probably like 16-flat, around there," Wiedeman said. "Maybe get a race in the 15s, but we'll see how I do this year. Just trying to keep motivated, be happy every single race, and not worry about times as much, just race."

"As you get faster, and he's in the 16s now, those seconds get harder to drop, but I would expect him to be in the 16:20s by the end of the year," Barhorst said. "I think he fully will do that, especially when we get to our district, regional and state."

The summer results already put him among the top runners in the Midwest Athletic Conference, along with Budde and Stucke from Marion and teammate Patrick Bernhold, but didn't give him the chance to compete with longtime rival Trevor Heitkamp, a junior at Fort Recovery.

"During most races right now, I've been keeping an eye on Noah Budde and Troy Stucke, but I really want to be where Trevor Heitkamp's at with Fort Recovery," Wiedeman said. "We've been racing each other for a long time, always been us versus each other in our grade."

Starting in the spring his sophomore year, Wiedeman took a leap forward on the heels of increased strength training. Barhorst noticed big gains in his 800 time and two-mile splits, and after lifting individually and with the football team over the summer, Wiedeman saw the work pay off with a trip to state in the fall of his sophomore year.

The next step is focusing on breaking his race into individual miles. In particular, he hopes to improve his times in the second mile of each race, where he's noticed a steeper drop-off than he'd like.

"My first mile, in my last meet, was a 5:10, and then I dropped to a 5:40 and a 5:40 again," he said. "I want to get that second mile down to like a 5:20, and then keep getting that third mile down too, keep working on the individual parts of my race."

Having broken through to make a state tournament appearance, Wiedeman's individual goal for this season is to crack the top-30 and earn all-Ohio honors. Last year, the cutoff was at 16:39.2, which he beat in the final race of the summer.

"I think that just raised his expectations," Barhorst said of last year's state tournament berth. "Last year, the goal was to get there, and this year his goal's to be all-state. So not just to get there, but to perform well there too. With higher goals always come higher expectations, and the understanding that there's more work to do to get there."