Manny Putz is closing in on the end of his self-imposed break of two-and-a-half weeks after running in the Nike Cross Nationals.
It was a long cross country season for the Onalaska High School senior, and the break is designed to give him a chance at a memorable final track and field season as a Hilltopper.
It’s a chance for him to play board games — Catan, Monopoly and Skip-Bo the most prominent of those — with his friends and family and pet his dogs more often. But that doesn’t mean the University of Wisconsin commit is lollygagging through the holiday season.
“I’m still running 20 minutes every other day — about 3 miles on the treadmill,” Putz said. “It’s just so I don’t forget how to run. Personally, it’s for my body and brain can just relax a little bit. Training does drain you mentally, so this (break) is just for that … to enjoy life a little bit and be a regular human being.”
There is nothing regular about the competitive season for Putz, who left all four of the WIAA state cross country meets in which he competed with a championship. He started by helping Onalaska win the Division 1 team title as a freshman and followed that up with three straight individual titles.
Championships aren’t just won by the fastest runners. They are won by fast runners who are also smart and understand their sport.
Putz understands his as well as anyone else his age, and he uses that to maximize the luxury he has in speed.
But sometimes, the elements interfere, and that’s what happened to him a second straight year at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, earlier this month.
Putz slipped on a muddy course at the starting line before somehow finding a way to move from dead last to finish fifth in 2023. He wasn’t as fortunate as a senior on a competition week with even more rain the first weekend of December. That took a toll on a soaked course that had already been used for the girls national race.
“I was in the top five at about 1,200 (meters), and all of a sudden a guy running in front of me falls,” Putz said. It was raining all day, and he fell right in front of me.
“So, there are 200 people running behind us, and after I fell on him, a bunch of other guys fell on top of me.”
Putz said he was spun around to face the runners that were behind him, and when he fell, he was simply trying not to get stepped on by a bunch of runners wearing half-inch spikes. He eventually got to his feet and made up some ground before placing 28th in 15 minutes, 58.8 seconds.
It wasn’t what he wanted or anticipated, but he decided to channel any frustration it produced and apply it for his final high school track and field season. While snow covers the ground on tracks throughout the Coulee Region, Putz will be working his hardest to run some special races on them in the spring.
“I talked to my coach (Darin Shepardson) about some not-so-easy time goals to get,” said Putz, who won gold medals in the Division 1 1,600, 3,200 and 3,200 relay at the Veterans Memorial Field Sports Complex at UW-La Crosse as a junior. “If you are scared of a goal, you’re not fast enough.”
Putz said he has been committing more to the weight room and lifting — for him — a lot. He is concentrating, for now, on non-running aspects of success like getting enough sleep and being responsible with what he eats.
“I’m hungry for a really good (track) season, not only because it’s my senior year,” Putz said. “I feel like I’ve been a little unlucky with some injuries (he missed his entire sophomore track season due to injury).
“Then I feel good, and I slip and fall in these big races. I’m ready to get back on a track, where I won’t slip, and I’ve never been more determined.”
