Luckily for the 3A public schools, Patrick Hilby never chose to attend his neighborhood school West Aurora. That means the junior from Aurora Central Catholic would have been in the so-called limelight competing non-stop against top-end talent.
But does that matter in the unrestricted era?
Under the tutelage of coach Troy Kerber, Hilby completed an undefeated IHSA campaign in the 800m. Among the eye-popping marks was winning the 2A state championship in 1:50.49. A week later at the HOKA Festival of Miles in St. Louis, Hilby finished second in what turned out to be the "half-mile" race of the year. Hinsdale Central junior Dan Watcke and Hilby battled to the tape with Watcke prevailing 1:48.59 to 1:48.81. The marks were US#1 and US#3 at the time, respectively.
Hilby graciously participated in a Q&A prior to the upcoming New Balance Nationals Outdoors in Philadelphia. You can view it below this interview.
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1) You had a tremendous junior year to set you up for what could be a historic year. What were the key factors that led to you winning state and becoming one of the fastest half-milers in the country?
My main focus was to run my best races and fastest times in May and June and not worry about what people were running during the indoor season.
Just putting my head down and trusting that when the championship season comes, I will be able to run my best and start turning some heads. At state I wanted to get out fast and take control of the race and not worry about time until I saw the 600m split then I knew it could be fast. And for HOKA, I had already run the fast time at state, so all I wanted to worry about was just competing and trying to win and if I did that then the fast time will come.
2) There has been some spirited talk regarding your training in terms of volume and intensity. Can you please set the record straight?
I am more of a speed guy but looking to improve on my aerobic strength in the summer. During basketball season I would run around two times a week with the total mileage being about 10 a week. Then when we got in season, most of my workouts were speed-related like 200s or mixed variable speed. In some of my training blocks, I would do longer workouts on the track like 1000s.
Still, I would sometimes do tempo runs but my longest run during the season would be about 5 miles. So the average miles per week would be around 12-15 miles a week during the season.
3) Assuming winning the NBON title is your goal, will you attempt to make the US Jrs team with a shot at the Pan-Am Games or will you shut the 2023 season down?
Yes, winning NBON is definitely the goal, but no I will not run any more races after New Balance and shut the season down. Everything in the past few weeks has come at me very quickly and I think shutting the season down even before I ran states and HOKA was the goal. I will look into it next year for sure though. Looking to take a few weeks off and then get to training for cross country with the team.
4) Lastly, what goals do you have for this upcoming cross country season?
My goals for this cross season are to definitely improve time-wise and show that I'm not just an 800 guy and that I can be good at anything from the 100 up to three miles. We have a good returning team and some great new guys and I believe we can get a team down to state which is super exciting. I got 20th last year which was good, but I was definitely looking for more. I am hoping to be in the top 5-10 range this year or better. I think this fall will be super exciting for me and more importantly the team.
