Senior runner bids fond farewell to last high school season

Star long-distance athlete senior Andrew Harter is approaching the end of his high school track career on a high note. After setting a personal record (PR) of 10:18 in the 3200m at a home meet against Fremont on April 2, he scored another PR at the CCS

Top 8 meet on April 17 with a time of 4:33 in the 1600m race.

His story of success in the sport, however, began with a budding interest in middle school.

Harter began his running career in eighth grade when he joined cross country to spend more time with his friends. He soon realized that he had the potential to succeed in this sport.

“I had never even thought about running,” he said. “I just wanted to do it as a means of staying in shape.”

Harter decided to stick with the sport, quitting basketball and baseball in eighth grade and later soccer in junior year as well. In freshman year, he joined cross country and track and continued both throughout all four years in high school.

“Track is a really good way to stay in shape and there are a lot of people who are really dedicated to the sport,” he said. “It’s fun talking with teammates for an hour on a run.”

Fellow runner senior Steven Sum feels that Harter adds “intensity and competitiveness that infects the rest of the team.”

“[Harter] has inspired me to work harder because of his dedication that I admire and respect,” Sum said. “He’s a great sportsman and a person that I strive to emulate.”

Sum said he has enjoyed watching Harter develop as a runner over a span of four years and hopes to keep in touch with him after high school, as they will be heading to separate colleges.

“I’ll miss his sense of humor and the sayings that he comes up with on our distance runs,” Sum said. “He's become one of my best friends because of cross country and track, and it's fun going on distance runs and going to meets with him.”

As a whole, the boys qualified for prestigious invitationals. Sum passed his previous 3200m school record of 9:10 with a new time of 8:56 at the Arcadia Invitational on April 11 and also broke the school’s 1600m time at Stanford invitational on April 4 with a record of 4:13. At the CCS Top 8 meet, junior Tanner Zuleeg placed third in shot put and Harter placed 23rd in the 1600m.

Harter had a rough start this season after popping his hip at the end of the CIF state cross country meet in November. In spite of the injury, the season is going well for him; many of his teammates also made CCS and are getting personal records. But despite successes on the part of the distance runners, the boys’ team has a record of 0-5 so far.

Harter plans to run track and cross country at Carnegie Mellon, the school he will attend starting this fall.

“I’m definitely going to miss the guys on the team,” he said. “We’re all going to different colleges so not being able to see them is definitely something I’m going to miss the most [about high school track].”