RAPID CITY - Pine Ridge's Alex Wilson likes to keep moving - whether it's on a track or dance floor. So it makes a little sense, more than it probably should, that he can run three races in one day - totalling nearly four miles - and become a region champion in all three of them.

Wilson won the 800-meter run at the Region 7A meet last Thursday in Mission in a time of 2:09.55, the 1,600-meter in 4:40.33 and the 3,200-meter with a time of 10:40.66 to win three region championships. He added an 800-meter leg in the 1,600-meter medley relay to help the Thorpes to a second-place finish in that race.

For these efforts, Wilson has been named the Rapid City Journal Athlete of the Week.

Wilson knows he only has a few chances left to leave his mark on the state.

"It's the last meet of my senior year before state," Wilson said about the region meet.

"I wanted to go for it all."

Going for it all left Wilson tired, but he has been working toward being able to handle that kind of load.

He's going to attempt it again - entering the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 - this weekend at the Class A state meet.

"I was sort of tired," Wilson said about the end of that particular day, which saw the senior run the mile in the morning, and the open 800 immediately followed by an 800-meter leg in the relay and the two-mile run later in the day. "But I've been practicing to get better."

Wilson loves to run, and it's what he does year-round.

He won a state Class A cross country championship in Rapid City as a junior and has been habitually in the top five of any race that he has entered since then.

But while he has come close - a third-place finish in the state cross country championship this year, a third in the 3,200-meter title race last year - he has yet to win another state championship. That's a big part of why he wakes up before school every day to get a workout in addition to whatever he is going to do.

"I think I can win the (3,200)," he says. "That's why I've been pushing myself every morning. I have to wake up and run."

Wilson's day doesn't usually end without another run, after practice, but before going in for the night, either. He estimates that he runs up to about 12 miles by the time his day is over. That's just part of being a Thorpe, according to Wilson, who is the nephew of three-time state champion Patrick Grass.

The tradition and training go hand-in-hand at a school that always has good distance runners.

"That's helped me a lot," Wilson said about the tradition of running excellence at the school. "I've run with my uncle, a three-time state champ, and on a state champion team that had some of the best runners around. I'm the last one from that team, but those guys taught me."

Wilson will need to call on all of his reserves of strength, energy and experience as he will run the 800- and 3,200-meter finals within an hour of each other Friday afternoon. If the second-to-last race of his high school career was an occasion to "go for it all," it will be interesting to see just how hard he goes after the first two races of the meet. Wilson readily admits that Friday's 3,200-meter run is his best chance at a state championship.

"I'm just going to go out and do my best," Wilson said. "I want to win, but I'll be running so it'll be fun no matter what."

Wilson, who wants to attend the University of South Dakota and run, is also an avid dancer. He spent his Saturday in Rapid City taking part in a breakdancing competition at Rushmore Mall and usually has a techno beat pumping through his headphones in preparation at a meet. He's hoping those quick feet come in handy this weekend in Lennox and Sioux Falls.

Don't be surprised to see Alex Wilson moving this weekend, quite possibly right up to the front of the pack.