In a rhythm, Rochester hurdler Dunwoody heads to state meet

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Harrison Dunwoody

Rochester Middle School track coach Nate Basham suggested to Harrison Dunwoody, then a seventh-grader, that he try the hurdles in the spring of 2021.

Now a Rochester High School junior, Dunwoody has taken that suggestion and run with it – or perhaps more accurately hurdled with it – all the way to the IHSAA state finals.

He will run the 110 hurdles at the state finals Friday at North Central High School in Indianapolis. The meet starts at 3 p.m., and Dunwoody is expected to take the track at approximately 6:15 p.m.

“It feels good,” Dunwoody said. “I mean, it feels like every other meet though. It’s exciting but just a different place and different track.”

Dunwoody made state by finishing second in the 110 hurdles at the Goshen regional May 29 in 15.31 seconds. The top three in each event at the regional make state.

Manchester’s Carson Heath defeated Dunwoody in a dual meet at Rochester April 15, at the Three Rivers Conference meet at Wabash May 9, at the Plymouth sectional May 20 and again at the regional.

Dunwoody said he and Heath have developed a friendly relationship, and Dunwoody said he and Heath congratulated each other after crossing the finish line.

“First, second and third go, and it was a pretty big gap between second and third,” Dunwoody said when asked if he knew he had made state as soon as he crossed the finish line. “So it was exciting. Me and Carson had some words at the end. … Conference, sectionals, regionals, we’ve made all of them before we go to state.”

Dunwoody’s time of 15.31 was one of his slower times, but that was to be expected given the race was run into a headwind.

“It was a sloppy race,” Dunwoody said. “It’ll shape up at state, but it was OK.”

Rochester coach Ryan Helt wonders if state-level competition will help Dunwoody drop time.

“There were a couple factors at regional,” Helt said. “They had a pretty strong headwind that I think slowed the entire field down a little bit. Ironically, at sectional, they had a tailwind that helped everybody. If you watch the video, the guy near him from Concord hit a hurdle, and I think that sometimes throws everybody off just a hair. His goal, I think, is sub-15. That’s going to be very difficult to achieve, but at the same time, he can run a pretty clean race, and he’s going to have a lot of adrenaline from the competitors around him. I wouldn’t rule it out.”

Dunwoody was asked if he has always loved the hurdles.

“I don’t know if anyone loves it from the start,” Dunwoody said. “But it was cool to grow as a hurdler.”

Dunwoody was sixth in 17.90 seconds at the 2023 Plymouth sectional. He was third in 16.32 seconds at the 2024 sectional. He was hand-timed in 14.93 seconds in a meet at Triton May 6. He was second in 15.24 seconds at this year’s conference meet. He was second in 15.16 seconds at this year’s sectional.

“Probably the jump between last year and the start of this year,” Dunwoody said when asked when he realized he was getting good. “Cutting a second, that was when I realized I should probably lock in and take it to the next level.”

Now time drops become more difficult.

“The faster you get, the harder it is to cut,” Dunwoody said. “That’s why the elite sprinters, they cut down a tenth of a second, and that’s, like, insane. But if you’re a beginner, you cut down a second a meet. It’s just a big gap.”

Dunwoody also said he forgoes upper body work in the weight room, which is more for football players.

“I’m just a pure sprinter,” Dunwoody said. “What really took me from slow to not as slow was just the hypertrophic moves like squatting. I just really went all in on that. Three days a week, that got me faster. … My speed increased, but my vertical increased four inches too.”

Helt described his preparation as “meticulous.”

“He has an attack plan every day at practice, but really, the credit goes to him,” Helt said. “He really transformed his body in the offseason. But part of it was he got healthy. He had broken his wrist pretty severely the previous year and couldn’t do some core workouts, and I think being healthy freed him up to do some things he couldn’t do before. He worked out with his buddies Spencer Backus, Kale Shotts and Jonas Kiser a little bit, and those guys worked hard in the offseason and came in ready.”

Dunwoody also said that getting a good start out of the blocks means “everything” to the start of his race. He said there are a lot of aspects to getting a good start out of the blocks.

“If I mess up the start, the whole race goes,” Dunwoody said. “Because I have a rhythm when I hurdle, and it gets messed up easily if I mess up my blocks. … I think you could get really good in a year, but if you are just genuinely progressing as a high schooler, it would take your whole career. Blocks are a hard thing to do. Just like the technique of it.”

As for practices over the last week, Helt said that assistant coach Alysha Wachtmann writes up the workouts.

They start with a “hurdle progression,” a series of drills Dunwoody has done at every practice.

Those drills take about 20 minutes. Then Dunwoody will put on his spikes and get the starting blocks out and attack the first hurdle.

“We’ll keep moving that out to about four hurdles,” Helt said. “And that’s usually it. Three or four reps on four hurdles, and then we’ll do a sprint ladder, so maybe starting at 90 meters and descending 10 meters each time with short rest. Long stretch and roll session, and that’s it. We’re probably in and out probably in an hour’s time this time of year.”

Dunwoody, who will be the No. 29 seed out of 30 hurdlers at state, said his mindset has changed. 

“I think more so this year, I’ve been running against myself, against my other times,” Dunwoody said. “Last year, it was once a meet someone would beat me. This year, it was four meets in the year. I think it was just racing my PRs (personal records).”

Asked what his goal was for state, he said he wanted to “run a good time” and watch the high jump.

“Those kids are crazy, all of them,” Dunwoody said with a smile. “That’s my roots. That’s my first event. Back in sixth grade, I was a high jumper and then I was switched over.”