Triton cross country runner Mason McIntyre, along with other athletes from the northern third of the state, will have one disadvantage at Saturday's state meet near Bloomington: hills.

Ever seen many of them in northern Indiana?

To prepare for the meet, the 18-year-old McIntyre is training on the closest thing to a southern Indiana hill he can find.

A northern Indiana cow pasture.

"It's a much more hilly course," Triton assistant coach Lee Cox says. "We've been trying to get him ready by doing some cow pasture hill work. There's a farm just north of Bourbon at the Summit Chapel."

The Bloomington course serves as Indiana University's cross country course. McIntyre has never run the course before, but IU coaches recently walked him through it.

"They said what usually gets people is the hills," McIntyre says.

McIntyre takes steps forward every year.

As a freshman, he did not get out of sectional.

As a sophomore, he advanced to the regional.

As a junior, he advanced to the semistate.

Now he's a senior at the state finals following a weekend where he ran his best time ever, 16:23 at the New Prairie Semistate. McIntyre placed ninth. The top 15 individuals advanced to the state finals.

"This week is the best I've felt out of my whole running career," McIntyre says. "Hopefully this weekend will be my peak time."

Running is in the family bloodlines. The greatest female track and cross country athlete in Triton history is Justina Reichert. Here's the proof to back that statement up: She holds four Triton track records, and she took seven trips to the state finals. She went four times in track and three times in cross country.

Reichert is McIntyre's cousin. He holds one school record, the two-mile run.

"She was the one who got me started," McIntyre says. "I started running when I was 10. Dad took me to road races, like the White River State games, every Saturday.

"I would watch her run ... I made it a goal to get to the state meet."

He has the good bloodlines, yes. But the lean 6-foot-1, 150-pound McIntyre tells you good bloodlines alone don't get you to the state finals. Competing for Triton's cross country teams since the sixth grade and running five miles a day six days a week during summer vacation ... these get you to state.

"I think a lot of it is hard work," he says. "I know I am blessed with a lot of talent. But running, you just don't go out and run. It takes more than that. I've had good coaching, and it's taken hard work. You put two and two together."

Says Cox: "Yeah, he has some talent, but he's made the most of that talent. He's a workhorse."

McIntyre may be Triton's only athlete advancing to the state finals, but he does not train alone. Freshman teammate Nate Gephart, who just missed the state cut by taking 18th at the semistate, and senior Wes Rettinger run with McIntyre.

"It's not as boring when you have somebody to run with," McIntyre says, "and they make me push myself.

"I want to do well for them down there. I feel like I am running for them."

If McIntyre has a strength in cross country, it's positioning. In his ninth-place finish at the New Prairie Semistate, McIntyre was ninth at the mile marker and ninth at the two-mile marker.

"He gets out, gets his position and holds his position," Cox says. "He's not a come-from-behind runner, but he's strong enough to hold people off."

McIntyre will run the IU course once before Saturday's 1:30 p.m. meet, where he will face 174 other athletes. He will run it this afternoon.

"My goal is the top 15," he says. "I'll shoot for that. It's hard to compare times going in because you have different courses. I know a lot of the kids there, and I feel I can run with them." [[In-content Ad]]