Photo by Phil Zivnuska
LADY VAULTERS Carroll's Cara Detmer and El Dorado's Jamie House won state titles by vaulting 12 feet. They posted the state's best vaults during the regular season, well over 12 feet, raising the girls competition to new levels of competition since its inception in 2000.

IT IS INTERESTING that in Kansas, 1,600-meter times have slowed since it replaced the slightly longer mile. In addition to Smith's state meet record of 4:13.6 standing firm since the second year of the event's inception, no boys runner at the state track meet has even broken 4:20 since Wichita Heights' Ryan Wilson in 2002 (4:19.39).

Maybe the times would be better if the mile hadn't been ousted. The mile? Hm, yeah, that sounds cool, I want do it, the kids would say. Few kids, or adults, can say how many meters are in a mile, so they just fudge it, run 1,600 meters and call it good. High school track coaches who remember the mile slip sometimes and call their 1,600-meter runners milers. It's easier to say.

"Most people still think of it as being the mile," says Ron Koppenhaver, former El Dorado track and cross country coach who retired after this season following 24 years with the Wildcats. "Runners just call it the mile even though it's not the mile."

Sixteen-hundred meter runner stumbles off the tongue like gobbledygook, and distance runner is blah. Miler just sounds cooler.

Naturally, the Kansas Relays is one of the premier events that continues to include the mile on its annual registry. The Memorial Stadium track is still 440 yards round. But the KU Relays mile is an invite-only men's event, a double-whammy excluding any high school boy from measuring himself up against the greatest of all-time in official competition.

"When you run the 1,600 [at Memorial Stadium]," says Koppenhaver, who sent his third girls distance runner (Molly Milbourn) to KU in his final season this year, "you start a little bit further up, actually not running quite a full four laps. Runners don't even notice the difference."

So why not use the unique nature of the track, suited for the mile, to market the event and have kids run the full four laps at the Relays?

In Wichita and the greater area, there is no shortage of potential milers in Ryun's wake. Three of the six 1,600-meter runs at this year's 101st Kansas state track meet in Class 6A, 5A and 4A girls and boys were won by Wichita area runners. Valley Center's Morgan Wedekind, Carroll's David Thor and Mulvane's Evan Landes swept the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs, what used to be the mile and two-mile.

El Dorado's Milbourn, .04 seconds off from sweeping the 1,600 and 3,200 in addition to the 800-meter at Class 4A state track in 2010, won the 3,200 in 2011, and Wichita North's Amber Eichkorn also won the Class 6A 3,200. Milbourn and Eichkorn placed second in the 1,600.

Girls distance running has been very deep the last three years in the area. Their names have become common in the high school ranks. Since 2009, ten of the twelve 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs at girls Class 5A and Class 4A state have been won by Milbourn, Wedekind and Kapaun's Mackenzie Maki. Milbourn, Wedekind, Maki and Eichkorn have combined to win seven of the last nine cross-country state championships in Class 6A, 5A and 4A.

Distance depth in the area is real. The Carroll boys have won three of the last four team cross country titles in Class 5A. The Carroll girls backed up their cross country title in the fall with a state track title, earning 32 of their 79.5 team points in distance races, and 62 of their team points by way of three of their state cross-country medalists, Kristen Powell, Katherine Dillard and Kaelyn Balch.

Dillard placed second in the 800-meter and third in the 400-meter. Powell placed first in the 300-meter hurdles and second in the 100-meter hurdles. Both ran legs on the state championship 4x800-meter relay and the third-place 4x400 relay.

Such versatility between speed, athleticism and endurance by the Carroll girls in such diverse track events offers support for mileing as a "sport," as Ryun calls it while campaigning for its resurrection through sponsor Adidas. Traditionally, the 400-meter dash is the final event on the track and considered a sprint, but when an 800-meter or mile is run at an incredible speed, say in the vicinity of four minutes, it is most assuredly a sprint, just by a different type of body from the sprinter's.
The x-factor is will. How long can you run hard and can you run as hard as you can the final lap?

"Endurance is the main thing," says Koppenhaver when asked what is the talent of running the mile, "and being willing to train really hard to develop that endurance, having a very high pain threshold, and learning even though they're really hurting, they can keep running fast."

Koppenhaver maintained a high pain threshold for himself in his final year of coaching, ailed by a bone marrow disease called mysofelioma. At his final home track meet this spring, Koppenhaver told the Wichita Eagle he stuck it out through the 2010-11 cross country and track seasons because his senior distance runners had one more year. "If my health was there, I wouldn't have retired," he told VYPE.

El Dorado's track team has leaned on its distance runners for points in recent years. Anchored by senior Casey Nightengale, the El Dorado 4x800-meter boys relay team won its second consecutive state championship at this year's state meet. Milbourn, also a senior running her final races at state track this year, won her fifth state championship in the distance runs.

In the past six seasons, El Dorado track and field and cross country managed to find the kind of success other programs at the school have struggled to achieve. Milbourn, and distance runner Laura Nightengale before her, led the girls track and field team to six consecutive top-eight team finishes at state track dating back to 2006, placing in the top four the last four seasons.

Milbourn will run for KU starting this fall, just as Nightengale did before her. After a promising start as a freshman at KU, Nightengale is no longer running after a suffering a series of stress fractures, but her success at El Dorado from 2006 to 2008 has continued these last three years through Milbourn, who took the baton from her mentor.

"Someone else comes along and says I want to be like [the previous runner]," says Koppenhaver of the continued success El Dorado has had, "and when they graduated, someone comes along. Others having success gave them confidence that they could do it also."

Nightengale helped to account for 18 of 25 team points in 2006, then 26 of 30 points, and finally 21 of 53 team points when the El Dorado girls team placed second in 2008, the year Milbourn arrived as a freshman, quickly contributing to 12 team points. In the subsequent three seasons at state track, Milbourn would contribute 80 total points in three state track meets to El Dorado's team totals, at least half the team's points each year.

Milbourn, following a not uncommon progression in girl athletes, slightly lost speed in the 1,600-meter and 800-meter from her junior year to senior year but got faster in the 3,200. "This year, she just didn't have quite as much speed as she had last year," says Koppenhaver, "but still ended up close. Her endurance keeps getting better all the time." Milbourn's strength at KU will be the long distance races, a far cry from the mile, the 5K and 10K and cross-country distances. But those who follow her progress in college will most easily comprehend her ability in terms of mile splits.

"I'm hoping that they'll still be able to come up with continued success," says Koppenhaver of the El Dorado track program. He says he will continue to spend as much time around the program as his health allows. "It'll be a little tougher next year - the first time on the girls side we won't have an elite runner."

The area's depth of elite girls runners is safe with Wedekind, Eichkorn and Balch, but El Dorado's recent run may end with Koppenhaver's retirement. Their average team finish at state track over the last five seasons is matched in Class 4A only by Baldwin, also a distance-running haven and the two-time defending state champ.

El Dorado's loss of senior Jamie House, who completed a four-year sweep at the state track meet in the Class 4A pole vault competition, will also hurt the Wildcats. House will continue to compete alongside her high school teammate, Milbourn, for KU track and field next year. She is the state's first four-time winner in the pole vault at the state meet since girls began contesting in the event in 2000.

House holds the Class 4A record, 12 feet, reaching that height in 2010 and 2011. During the 2010 and 2011 regular seasons, she vaulted over 12 feet, though she did not reach the state record of 12-7 set by Hesston's Christi Lehman in 2001. House vaulted 12-5 1/2 this season, bested in the state only by Carroll's Cara Detmer (opening photo), who vaulted 12-6. Detmer matched the Class 5A state meet record with a 12-foot vault.

For an event that was considered before 2000 not fit for girls due to their inability to vault very high, the progression by the two girls to vault consistently at 12 feet or higher has brought the field event to a new level of competition. Seeing the rising popularity of pole vaulting, shown by the growth of street vault competitions like the one held in El Dorado's downtown the last three years, Ryun probably wishes his "sport" could gain such traction again.

Photo by Phil Zivnuska
DISTANCE LEGACY Only Baldwin, the two-time defending team champ, has matched the El Dorado girls track team in average state placement (3.6) over the last five seasons. El Dorado has leaned on the success of its distance runners, chiefly Molly Milbourn, who helped account for 92 team points over her four state track meets.

Photo by Phil Zivnuska
WEDEKIND'S TIME After a quiet performance as a freshman at the state track meet, Valley Center sophomore Morgan Wedekind backed up her two state cross country titles by winning the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter at the Class 5A state track meet.


Photo by Jeff Tuttle
FAST TRIFECTA After being closed out from a single gold medal at the 2010 state track meet, Burns swept the Class 4A sprints, posting a sub-11 100-meter, sub-22 200 and sub-49 400, the first to do so since 2003.