Assorted thoughts on state cross country

The 5A girls medalists share a few thoughts of their own--at least those who are still ambulatory--as they wait for the awards to begin. Photo by Karen McCoy.

My 15th year of coaching cross country and 14th state meet just passed into the rear-view mirror. Funny thing, though, they don't all start to blend together.

While my seasons of coaching are unique to my coaching experience, my state meets are not. Every coach who comes to the state meet shares the same state meet. It may not come out the same for all coaches, but the commonalities are extensive.

I would guess for many of us that, when we think of state meet 2014, we'll think of heat. This one ranks up with 2009 and 2010, both of which were very warm state meets. Heat probably made a lot less impact in 2009, however, since the effect of heat was not compounded by the effect of a difficult course.

Did the heat really make a difference? The average time at this year's state meet for boys was 19:19, compared to 18:44 for last year. For girls this year, it was 23:21 this year versus 22:21 last year. Boys and girls averages from 2012 were 18:56 and 22:24. Of course, heat wasn't all of the difference. It was clearly a slower track this year with the freshly resurfaced trail. It's difficult to sort out, though, how much of the difference belonged to the trail and how much to the heat (honestly, barometric pressure wasn't at all bad this year, but when it gets as warm as it was Saturday, the air is so expanded to begin with that high barometric pressure really doesn't help much). I'm guessing, though, a lot more of it had to do with heat than track.

Maybe a more telling picture of the heat, though this time a picture that combines with the overall degree of difficulty of the course, is the number of teams that saw an important runner fall substantially back from their normal level of performance. The list that follows completely ignores individuals (though you could probably name a couple right away), and doesn't purport to be exhaustive, but each of the following teams endured at least one substantial setback:

3A Boys - Lamar, Peak to Peak, Estes Park, Ridge View Academy

4A Boys - Cheyenne Mountain, Evergreen, Mountain View, Air Academy, Erie, Golden

5A Girls - Pine Creek, Cherry Creek, Mountain Vista

2A Boys - Rocky Ford, Heritage Christian Academy

3A Girls - Kent Denver, Moffat County, Pagosa Springs, Brush, Frontier Academy, Eaton, Vanguard

4A Girls - Battle Mountain, Green Mountain, The Classical Academy, Air Academy, Canon City, Centaurus, Silver Creek, Standley Lake

5A Boys - Fort Collins, Boulder, Monarch, Pomona, Dakota Ridge, Grandview, Arapahoe

I can't promise all of these setbacks are some combination of heat and course difficulty, but undoubtedly many are. Any way you try to look at it, it's a lot of teams. It was a tough, tough day. I don't know of any team that feels like they had an all-around great day from the top of their order to the bottom, though certainly plenty did well enough. My nomination for top team all around relative to expectations would have to go to one of the Alamosa boys, Niwot boys, or Fort Collins girls. All were expected to do well, of course, but it's also true that all exceeded expectations relative to other teams in a big way. A big shout out to these teams. Though less obvious from a first glance at the standings, the Coronado and Rampart boys probably come under the same umbrella.

I noticed that the trail congestion seems to be a little less intense on early portions of the course this year. Two years ago, it was packed liked sardines for the first half mile of the 4A and 5A races. Things start to string out sooner now--or at least they did this year. I don't know what to attribute that to, but it's probably some combination of factors. One obvious factor was going from 30 to 24 teams in 4A after 2012. Another possible factor is that runners seem to be growing more accustomed to the outgoing creek crossing. There seems to be much less hesitation at the brink of the creek than there has been previously. In any case, the little trundle through the woods was a lot more sane for the racers this year, even if many weren't around two years ago to appreciate the magnitude of the difference.

I still struggle with making the choice of seeing the race or seeing the finish on this course. I'm willing to chip a little bit off my vantage point near the finish to see the greater body of the race, but a lot can--and does--happen in the last 350 meters on this course. But, I'll never see it because I've cast my lot with the Bear Creek Park side of the course. The bridge on the old state meet course in Pueblo--though it was certainly problem enough--was easy compared to the creek crossing on this course. Part of the difference between the two is that, with the Pueblo cross there was room to move once you were over the bridge. Once you're over bridge here, you're still fighting lines of traffic for several more meters. It's probably also fair to say that there are more people now.

I don't know if I'm the only coach out there who wishes for this, but I'd love to see a rotation of events. Honestly, as long as we're dealing with warmer falls, there should be a rotation of the the prime time of the first-race-of-the-morning slot. And, as much as I understand that the largest concentration of the fastest runners is going to be in the 5A boys race, I'd rather see that last race rotated around, too. In fact, it actually might help the clearing of the event traffic if 5A boys didn't come last. Clearly, all that is not a deal breaker for me, but it seems like a change that's about due.

I'm sure the show inside the stadium and is nice and all, but I never made it in there except to check results. If anyone ever posts a suggestion box for state cross country, my first suggestion is going to be that results get posted in more than one location, and at least one location that is not a dark one. Dark didn't used to be a big deal for me, but I'm 55 and I don't see as well as I formerly did. All sorts of things that once made no sense whatsoever to me are starting to make sense now. Unfortunately, one of those things is that I understand pretty well now why most people over 50 have given up running. I marvel at Doug Bell and know that I will never be like him.

I've noticed a slight upticking trend in the number of teams setting up camp outside the athlete village. I don't exactly want to encourage that, being an outside-the-box camper who likes his space, but you'll have to get to the state meet pretty early to beat me to our selected campsite outside the village. So, I'm not too worried about losing our location. I'm slightly envious of Durango's staked-out spot on the grass until I think of how far they are from the starting line. At that point, I'm okay with where we are again.

It was great to see Glen Peterson at the state meet. He was surrounded with humanity when I saw he was there and I was in a hurry, so I didn't stop. But, it's nice to see the gentleman around at the big show.

It was nice to see Mike Callor expand the group of coaches who have won state titles at two different schools. Let's just get this out in the open right now--Fort Collins has had a brilliant October. I'm not sure how well Mike Callor slept in September, but I'm guessing October made up for it.