Stadium’s Alfonso twins among state’s best cross country runners
It’s one thing to have a single runner that has state championship capabilities. The Stadium High School cross country team has two.
Seniors Luke and Jacob Alfonso are fraternal twins for the Tigers who have the skill and speed to be top runners in the state. With 5,000-meter times that rank in the top 20 in Washington, both runners are viable competitors for the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association 3A state title.
Washington has plenty of talented runners, but the brothers are aiming for a top-five finish to end their high school careers. They also love getting out on the trails and doing what they love.
“Like other elite runners, they are hardworking and disciplined. They have a keen desire to improve and excel,” said coach George Ybarra. “They’re good listeners and they are good observers. After they listen and observe, they are analytical. And so, they go over their observations, what they’ve heard, and they talk about it. They come up with conclusions about how it’s going to help them be better athletes.”
The passion that the twins hold for racing dates to when they were children, thanks to their parents Layne and April. Both are passionate runners themselves. When Layne and April took their twin sons to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma to run races, the enthusiasm for all things running was passed down.
Since then, for the better part of the last 12 years, the twins have grown into dominant runners on the cross-country course. Even when they were in middle school, their talent was highly regarded and made Ybarra excited for their eventual involvement at Stadium.
“When they were running in middle school, the question was which high school are they going to go to,” Ybarra said. “I’m a retired teacher now, but I remember sitting in my class during lunchtime… and one of the team captains came in and said ‘hey, they’re coming’. I asked who was coming and he said the twins. I said ‘great!’.”
It’s not hard to understand why Ybarra is happy to have Luke and Jacob on his team. They train hard at practice, finish races with impressive times, and serve as role models for the other racers on the team.
In their races this year alone, the twins are consistently finishing in the top 10. Often, they finish within seconds of each other, but at the 22nd Bellarmine XC Invite on September 11, they finished with identical times of 10 minutes and 2.1 seconds.
Some of their success can be traced back to how hard they train and push each other to get better. While they’re twins, their personalities differ. Luke sees the finer details in things and Jacob sees the wider picture. Because both are analytical, they can determine the right workouts for the appropriate gains.
“For our training, we like to mix up a lot of endurance workouts and speed workouts mixed with some strength. Whatever we are doing, we like to stay consistent with what we do throughout the whole season,” Jacob said. “For example, this season we’ve been doing a lot of hill repeats. We’ve stayed consistent with the same hill, same starting point, and same speed. Everything is the same except the farther we get into the season, we can build up the distance we go to get stronger.”
They try to stay consistent in how they train throughout the season, and they also strive for consistent mileage with each other. Training is a lot easier because they are in it together and always have a running partner ready to get up and go
They spend a lot of time running in Wright Park, and on the big hills that are in the area surrounding Stadium. Running together to gain that gradual progression and strength is what makes them successful.
Their teammates have noticed as well. The brothers like that. They want to give tips and advice so the whole team can reach greater heights.
“Mainly, we just have to be good role models and just go to practice prepared and ready for some hard work,” Luke said. “Also, we’ve been running for 12 years now, and I think just being a role model comes easy with all the experience that we have… It’s also the fact that Jacob and I have been a team our whole lives as twins. I guess we are just accustomed to that [team] experience.”
The two runners hope to continue their running success when they enter college. There have been talks with a few coaches from the University of Portland and the Air Force Academy, among others, but no official commitments yet.
Both Jacob and Luke will hit the trails again on Wednesday, October 13 at Fort Steilacoom Park, when the Tigers will race against Lakes, Bonney Lake, Stadium, and Silas.