Yersak faces task of finding his rhythm

By STEVE WOOD
Courier-Post Staff

Alex Yersak is normally a people person.

But whether running through a busy street or a secluded forest this summer, the Cherokee senior emerged the same way he entered -- alone.

There, in the quiet of solitude, Yersak faces a task far more challenging than keeping up with any one of his dozen stellar teammates -- finding his own rhythm.

"You don't have anybody there to set the pace. You have to motivate yourself," the Chiefs' co-captain said. "You can easily stop. No one's going to know if you stopped running or slowed down."

Off a year that saw Yersak repeat as the South Jersey Group 4 champion, win the Burlington County Open, the South Jersey Open Division 3 title and the Olympic Conference championship in 15:58, one question remains: What does the Chiefs' frontman do for an encore?

Answer: Work on his game face.

No matter the lead, Yersak never made winning look easy. Toward the end of a race, Yersak would tighten his face, tense up and shatter his perfect form when surging, regardless of whether there was anyone to catch.

"He's so intense there's only so many times you can run him during the course of a season," Cherokee coach Steve Shaklee said.

For the first couple months of the summer, Yersak flew solo -- running an average of 50-60 miles a week, trying to find a "swift and effortless" pace.

Yersak didn't always stray from the pack.

Weeks prior to the 2004 season, the then-freshman tried to break into the team's top seven by sticking with the team's top runner, his older brother.

"He'd keep up to me," said Tom Yersak, the Courier-Post Runner of the Year in 2004 and currently a junior at Princeton University.

Despite being fueled with a stamina that puttered after only a mile in middle school, Alex would stretch himself to run four when practicing with the varsity.

"It made me want to work really hard to make the top varsity squad," he said. "I wanted to impress them by just trying to hold on."

Late-season team injuries slid Yersak into his desired spot, one that he has never taken for granted since.

One of South Jersey's top runners and an expected contender in the Group 4 state championship, having finished eighth in 2006, Yersak is still humbled by the Chiefs' depth. There are a dozen sub-18 minute runners, including a strong core in senior co-captain Kevin Schickling, sophomore Steven Burkholder and juniors Chris Applegate and Sean Hartnett.

"We want to have that. That's what makes the team good," Yersak said. "If you don't want to be good enough to be in the top five, if you don't have people being competitive on the team, how do you keep people wanting to go faster?

"If you don't have the fear of being kicked off varsity, you might not run as fast."

Aware that the Chiefs (6-1 in 2006) are bidding for their first state championship since 2000, as well as of his own ticking tenure at Cherokee, Yersak knows his time to win is now.

Plus, although bound, he's not exactly looking forward to track.

"I'm not the person who trains in cross country to run in track. I'm the person who runs to succeed," he said, later adding, "I think cross country is real running. Track is just running about in pointless circles . . . It's monotonous."

Shaklee thinks Yersak favors cross country for an additional reason -- and it's not blowing in the wind.

While dominant in cross country, Yersak is slowed by allergies in the spring, Shaklee said.

What a difference a few months can make.

"Nothing can get in my way of cross country," Yersak said.

Yersak has been training with the team for the last three weeks and has learned to talk in terms of "team" rather than "me," sidestepping specific goals for wanting "each person running to their capabilities."

Shaklee hasn't discussed expectations with Yersak yet, but then again, he doesn't need to.

"It's kind of assumed that he knows what he wants. I knows what he wants," Shaklee said, "and he knows that I know."