Parisien's running in the front of the pack

JEREMIAH BARTZ/ Sports Editor

In just his first season at the high school level, Jake Parisien established himself as one of the top runners in the state of Alaska. Now Parisien can argue he is one of the top runners on the West Coast of the United States.

Earlier this month Parisien competed in Foot Locker West Region Championships at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif., and placed fourth. More amazing than the Palmer freshman's fourth-place finish in a national event,was the fact Parisien didn't even run competitively for two months prior to the Dec. 4 race.

"Not having trained since state, Jake goes down on raw talent and finishes fourth," Palmer head cross-country running coach Gary Howell said. "He has serious potential. You don't see it a lot out of the Valley."

Parisien said, by comparison of his best times to the times of other runners in his class, he thought he could do fairly well. But he even exceeded his own high expectations. Parisien, who also participates in basketball at PHS, took the two months off from running -- putting him at what might be a disadvantage. Most of the 400 runners in his freshman division are just coming off their state championships. Some of the runners hailing from warm weather states even had their cross-country running state championships two weeks before the Foot Locker race. And Parisien still beat them.

"Some kids he beat really were ticked," Howell said. "Jake is such a good spirited kid."

Parisien said he was surprised about the fast start of the race and at points early in the competition, he was wondering if he could break into the top 10. But a key to Parisien's success was his performance on one of the steeper challenges of the rigorous Mount San Antonio College trail, the hills. It was not his performance while climbing the hills, that proved to be an advantage, but his ability to make up time on the downward slopes. Parisien said his strategy was to maintain his speed on the uphill and make aggressive moves on the downside of the hills.

Parisien finished fourth out of more than 400 runners with a time of 17 minutes and 36 seconds on the 5-K (3.1 mile) course. Jim Walsmy, of Phoenix, Ariz., finished third, just one second faster than Parisien. Stephen Clark, of Salt Lake City, placed second at 17:13 and Rob Webster, of Tacoma, Wash., won the division with a time of 17:02.

Parisien traveled to California with Howell and two other Palmer High runners, Ethan Craddick and Ryan Harrington. Craddick, a PHS senior, really fell in love with running, Howell said, and used the experience as sort of a last hurrah competing in the sport at the prep level. Howell said he wanted to bring Harrington to California because the junior is going to be one of the leaders for the 2005 Moose running team. Howell said there were three heats and nearly 1,000 runners in the junior division.

Parisien said his finish in the Foot Locker race doesn't necessarily change his overall goals in the sport, but it has driven him to work toward improving his finish in the western nationals next year. He plans on running in the event each of the next three years in addition to running in every 5-K that Alaska has to offer.

In his first season at the prep level, Parisien finished fourth in the Region III championships for the Moose. Parisien made history last spring when he broke a pair of 10-year-old marks at the Mat-Su Championships middle school track and field event.