Playoff Profiles : Fit Montoro Picks Up Pace

After feeling fatigued most of the season because of overzealous training, Felipe Montoro of Hoover High appears to be hitting his stride at the right time.

Montoro, who will run in the Foot Locker West regional at Fresno’s Woodward Park on Saturday, placed eighth in the Division I race at the State championships in Fresno last week to lead Hoover to a fourth-place finish.

Montoro had been the team’s No. 2 runner behind David Lopez until the State meet. On Saturday, Montoro finished five places ahead of Lopez, who was recovering from a hamstring injury.

“Basically, [Saturday] was the first race he’s really felt good in a long time,” Hoover Coach Greg Switzer said of Montoro. “He’d been battling a cold for the previous three or four weeks.”

Switzer said Montoro caught the cold because he had worn himself down in training. His protege agreed.

“I don’t think we did too many miles,” Montoro said. “I just think we raced too much in training. Instead of just going out and putting in a good run, we’d have a tendency to get very competitive with each other.

“It wasn’t a case of too much quantity, it was a case of too much quality. There would be too much intensity.”

Some of that intensity occurred because Montoro is part of a team that spent much of the season atop the state Division I poll. Another factor was Montoro’s desire to have a top-notch senior season after running 4 minutes 24.3 seconds in the 1,600 meters during his junior track season.

Throw in the fact that Montoro has a 3.95 grade-point average and spends ample time studying, and it isn’t surprising he felt “flat” during races for much of the season.

However, a recent decrease in training mileage and improved health have Montoro feeling good about the West regional.

“I think I might be able to run a little faster than I did last week,” he said. “Really, I just want to run a [personal record] and see what happens.”