All-District Boys Cross Country: Modesto’s Guerrero is a cut above the rest
Alan Guerrero ran the Modesto Marathon and was 17 seconds away from qualifying for the prestigious Boston Marathon.
He was in eighth grade.
“I would like to be a marathon runner one day,” the Modesto High senior said. “It might not have been a good idea to run one that young but I really fell in love with (running) that year.”
Guerrero is the Bee’s Boys Cross Country Runner of the Year after qualifying for the CIF State Cross Country Championships for the second straight year.
“It was a good season,” he said. “It didn’t end the way I wanted it to but I am happy with the way things turned out this year.”
Guerrero wasn’t happy with his performance (138th place, 16 minutes, 47 seconds) in Fresno on Nov. 24 in the State Meet.
“The toughest part was the sheer amount of running talent in that race,” he said. “I am used to being in the front of a race, top 10-20, and I was even running faster than I usually do but I was in 50th place and fighting for that spot.”
Guerrero won all three Central California Athletic League meets and finished fifth in the Sac-Joaquin Sub-Section meet on Nov. 3 and sixth at the Section meet on Nov. 17.
Guerrero’s best race of the season came at the college he dreams of attending: Stanford.
Guerrero finished ninth at the Stanford Invitational on Sept. 29. His time of 16:02 was a personal record until he lowered it to 15:46 at a CCAL meet on Oct. 3.
“It was a really fun race,” Guerrero, who wants to major in electrical engineering, said. “It was a fast course and I had a good race. I was pretty dead after the race though.”
Last week, Guerrero started running again after taking two weeks off.
“I have a lot of sore muscles,” he said.
Guerrero’s PR in the mile is 4:34 and he would like to get “under 4:30” and “into the low 4:20s” in his last year.
With only track season left, Guerrero is going to miss his teammates and coaches at Modesto.
“I enjoy the cross country community,” he said. “Our team, we all got along really well this year.”
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Guerrero File
Name: Alan Guerrero
School: Modesto
Sport: Cross Country
Year: Senior
Favorite Subject: Physics, loves how the world works.
Favorite Food: Posole, brings back memories every time he eats it. Will be eating it during holidays with the family.
Top Colleges: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Stanford, UC San Diego and UCLA
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Dec. 21: Girls Cross County (Madison Kackley)
Dec. 22: Boys Cross County: (Alan Guerrero)
Dec. 23: Football
Dec. 24: Girls Golf
Dec. 25: Girls Tennis
Dec. 26: Volleyball
Dec. 27: Girls Water Polo
Dec. 28: Boys Water Polo