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Oscar Martinez's Best Marks:
400 Meters - 51.37
800 Meters - 1:57.91
1600 Meters - 4:35.14 (at altitude)
5K Cross Country - 16:21.6 (at altitude)
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Obviously, Adams State wins the prize for the school being the closest to home, but you didn't have to attend the school closest to home. What put Adams State at the top of your list?
I got several emails and calls from other coaches and at first I was very interested in leaving the valley, until I took my recruiting visit to Adams State. Once I went it completely changed how I felt about Adams. The other runners there are great guys and Coach Martin made me feel as if I was his only athlete on the team and it's something special. The Coaching is what really made me want to stay near home and be part of the Adams State running tradition.
What do you plan to study at Adams State?
I plan on studying Business Marketing at Adams State. I plan on starting up my own fashion business one day.
For you, your track races came along sooner than your cross country race. You saw a lot of success at 400 and 800 meters before you saw it in cross country. What did you do--or keep doing--that brought the cross country results along?
This summer was the hardest transition of my running career. I hated Cross Country with a passion. I started doing a lot more tempos starting off with a basic 1 mile tempo then 1 and half, slowing increasing my mileage. I hated tempos but by the end of the season I loved them and knew I needed them to get better at Cross Country.
You're part of a group of seniors what was very nearly the entire varsity cross country team at Alamosa the last three years. To have that many accomplished distance runners in a single class at a school as small as Alamosa is kind of unusual. How did things all start coming together for this group? When did you start running together?
It was honestly just destined for us to come together. I know Coach D started the Penguin Club with Isaiah Delacerda, Caleb Palmer, and Casey McDaniel at a young age. In middle school Coach D saw potential in Miguel Baltazar and asked for him to come out. I joined in middle school as well after Zoila Gomez suggested I try running out. Caleb "Squid" Berlinger came from Sangre [de Cristo] and was one of our JV guys until he stepped it up. Sophomore year was when things really came along. It was just destiny we came together and I thank God for having all these amazing people in my life. The bond we created with each other will last forever I'm going to miss all these guys.
Pick a favorite moment for us from your high school career.
My favorite moment was last year at the Clash Legend meet when we were the only 3A school running the 4x8 and these 5A schools were asking who or what Alamosa was. We ended up winning by a hair with an 8:15 it was the most challenging race of my life because I had a 100m gap to make up.
What's left on the table to accomplish in the last two of your high school career?
Besides my 800 I'm pretty content with my mile this year. I run one mile a year just as workout; however this year topped it off and I plan on running a couple more. My final goals to wrap the season up are helping my team win the 4x800 for our third year. It'll be something special for us seniors to continue the tradition Tanner Martin and Jericho Ulibarri started with us.