RUNNING : Howard Loses Ground on Bid to Double

Sherri Howard’s excursion into the double-distance world of the 400 and 800 meters has been placed on hold for another season by her nemesis--injury.

Howard, a three-time Olympian and 1980 graduate of Kennedy High, had planned to add the 800 to her racing repertoire this season, but tendinitis in both Achilles’ tendons delayed those plans.

“Things were going right on schedule until April,” Howard said. “But then I started to get those old familiar pains.”

The pain, which originally started in her left Achilles’ tendon before afflicting her right Achilles’ tendon, was only mildly irritating at first, but soon it became so bad that she had trouble jogging, let alone running hard.

“When I first felt it, I was hopeful that I could get over it in two or three weeks,” said Howard, 29. “I was still hopeful that I could salvage the season, but when the pain got worse, I figured it would be wisest to give it a rest, and let it heal completely.”

A doctor traced the cause of the problem to her lower back, where a misalignment between her spine and her pelvis caused an imbalance in her legs, leading to the tendinitis.

To combat the problems, Howard performs a series of daily back exercises and undergoes deep massage on her Achilles’ tendons to promote healing and loosen scar tissue that formed from previous injuries and surgeries.

“The massage really seems to be helping,” said Howard, who has a personal best of 50.40 seconds in the 400. “I’m hoping to open up (the 1992 track season) in Australia in January.”

Trivia question: She was a Kinney national high school cross-country All-American three times. She won three consecutive state titles in the 3,200 meters, and she holds the regional high school records in four events ranging from 1,500 meters to two miles.

Who is this former area standout?

Going for two: The National Scholastic Outdoor track and field championships will be staged at Birmingham High again next year, according to meet coordinator Jim Spier.

Spier said that the Birmingham High Dads Club wants to stage the meet the weekend after the California state high school championships--as it did this year--despite the fact the meet would be held the same weekend as the Golden West Invitational in Sacramento, an established national meet for high school seniors.

“They’re very, very enthusiastic about holding it again,” Spier said. “They’re hopeful of getting some major corporate sponsors.”

This year’s inaugural meet was plagued by disorganization, lack of publicity and weak fields in several events.

Birmingham Athletic Director Lou Ramirez, one of the meet’s organizers, said that he and other members of the organizing committee learned from their mistakes this season.

“It will be a much better meet next year,” Ramirez said. “We got a lot of good feedback from athletes, parents and fans. And with a year to get ready for it, it will be that much more organized.”

Double trouble: The start of the 1992 high school outdoor track and field season is more than eight months away, but it wouldn’t be jumping the gun to describe Nikki Shaw and Maribella Aparicio of Fillmore High as one of the nation’s strongest distance twosomes.

Shaw ran 2:09.09 in the 800 and 4:49.01 in the 1,600 meters as a junior this season, winning the former event at the National Scholastic Outdoor Championships, and placing second in the latter at the state championships.

Aparicio ran a personal best of 10:46.32 to place sixth in the 3,200 at the state meet last month as a sophomore.

Ridiculous distances: Isn’t it time that the California Interscholastic Federation dropped the 1,600 and 3,200 meters from the state championships and substitute either the 1,500 and 3,000 meters, or the mile and two-mile in their place.

The mile and two-mile were the standard distance events at the state championships until 1980, when the meet--in an attempt to mirror the rest of the world--switched its races from yard to metric distances.

The CIF did the right thing by going metric, but it erred when it replaced the mile and two-mile with the 1,600 and 3,200--and not the 1,500 and the 3,000.

Although the 1,600 and 3,200 are closer to the mile and two-mile in distance, the 1,500 and the 3,000 are the traditional metric distances contested at the national and international level.

Athletes from California will never compete in a 1,600 or a 3,200 after high school, so it makes no sense to have them run in those races in high school.

Upcoming events: Darcy Arreola of Cal State Northridge and Jean Harvey of Antelope Valley College each will compete in an international track and field meet within the next week.

Harvey will run in the final of the women’s 10,000 meters at the Pan American Junior (19 and under) Games in Kingston, Jamaica, on Friday.

Arreola will run in a semifinal of the women’s 1,500 at the World University Games in Sheffield, England, on Wednesday--and providing she qualifies--in the final the next day.

Add events: Mark Covert, Harvey’s coach at Antelope Valley, is approaching a milestone as his running streak will hit the 23-year mark Tuesday.

Covert--who has run at least three miles a day during the streak--has been recognized for years as the owner of the nation’s longest current streak.

He might be the world leader as well because the 25-year-plus streak of Great Britain’s Ron Hills reportedly has ended.

“I’ve heard that from three or four people in the last month,” said Covert, who finished sixth in the marathon at the 1972 U. S. Olympic Trials. “But I haven’t been able to verify it.

World leader or national leader, the 40-year-old Covert will have run more than 101,000 miles during the streak when it turns 23 on the 23rd.

That is an average of 12 miles a day and 4,380 miles a year.

Trivia answer: Vickie Cook of Alemany High won three state titles in the 3,200 meters from 1980-82, and placed sixth or better in the Kinney national cross-country championships from 1979-81.

She holds regional records in the 1,500 meters (4:21.0), mile (4:41.8), 3,000 meters (9:22.3) and two-mile (10:15.36).