The new and improved bridge at the southeast corner of the Norris Penrose Event Center property. All photos by Alan Versaw.
The idea of altering the layout of the state cross country course was first put into play by the Colorado High School Activities Association. When CHSAA asked for a four-year extension of their stay at the Norris Penrose Event Center/Bear Creek Regional Park, they indicated that a potential reconfiguration was part of the deal. Although CHSAA offered no specifics on that reconfiguration, presumably the idea was to, somehow, address the issues of the creek crossing at roughly 400 meters and Big Willis.
Recent work at NPEC/BCRP has provided an option that hasn't before been feasible. The key to a possible new configuration is the improved bridge now in place at the southeast corner of the NPEC property, replacing the one that was washed out in late-summer flooding some 20 months ago.
We'll start here with a map of what such a course could potentially look like:
Downloadable, slightly larger, course map imagery
The start would be close to the current start, but not quite the same place, and heading in a very different direction. There is more room for a start line here than the Google Earth imagery suggests, but there is not as much room for a start line as the current course has.
I did not cross over to NPEC property when visiting the site this morning, so I cannot speak to the issue of whether the new start line would require reduced fields for 4A and 5A.
There would have to be a little wig-wagging of the course between 100 and 200 meters, but no sharp turns. At a little before 200 meters, the course would bear left and cross the new bridge (very wide, made for large vehicles, not pedestrians), and bear left again to pick up the trail once well past the bridge itself. The course could follow this trail around in clockwise fashion for about 100 meters before bearing west-northwest. This would be the section on the map with a very high density of red waypoints.
At this point, the course would be taking a counter-clockwise loop around the southeast corner of the Bear Creek Regional Park trail system (a clockwise loop would be ill-advised as that would involve going down Little Willis and negotiating a sharp turn at the bottom of the hill). One full loop would take the runners to the same west-northwest section of trail and allow those hanging around near the start to see the runners one more time.
This time around, instead of turning to run up Little Willis, this course would continue in a westerly direction and take the big loop around the west end of the parcel. The loop would meet up with the current course at about the two-mile point of the current course.
From the point where this course meets the current course, the remainder of the route would be identical to the current course.
There would be an issue or two to resolve. The course layout as shown above measures roughly 4855 meters, a little over three miles but well short of 5K. Since nobody is setting PRs on this course, I'm not sure how much that matters to folks.
Still, there are at least two possible ways to extend the course. One, if short outdoor arena rail fence could be taken down for the occasion, the start could be backed up some 80 meters directly behind where it is show on the map above. Two, on the loop in the southeast corner of the BCRP trail system, you could completely reverse the start all the way back to where the outgoing course turns left just beyond the bridge. If you did the latter, however, you would be a little over 5000 meters.
For the record, the current course may also come out a little short of 5000 meters on Google Earth by something on the order of about 20 meters, but that depends some on how you pick waypoints.
The course shown above definitely has rises and falls. The net gain/loss on this course is not much different from the current configuration. It would still be safe to say Colorado would have the state cross country course with the greatest elevation gain and loss in the entire nation. For some people, that's a bonus; for others, it's not.
The course would not, however, have any monster hills the size or duration of Big Willis. Neither would it have a continuous section of almost 1.5 miles of downhill. Most importantly to many folks, it would no longer have a narrow, congested stream crossing at 400 meters. It would have a little bending at 150 - 250 meters, but not under conditions of highly constricted traffic flow.
In my estimation, a little wig-wagging at 150 - 250 meters is vastly superior to splitting the fields between barn and path-beside-barn and then negotiating a narrow creek crossing while the field is still highly compacted, but I'll leave you to make up your own mind about that.
Spectator experience is probably modestly improved in the configuration illustrated above. There probably aren't many additional opportunities for viewing the race, but how hard you have to work to get from point to point to see the runners (unless you opt simply to stand and wait at the big intersection) is somewhat reduced.
I have included a few photos, and captioned them in what I hope is informative fashion, below:
This is a view of the new bridge from the east (Bear Creek Regional Park side). The road and bridge are much wider than any portion of the current course except the start and until runners enter the stadium at the end of the race.
This is a view of the start of the course layout diagrammed in the map above. The start would be directly behind the backhoe you see in this photo. The lighter dirt behind that is an outdoor rodeo arena that could possibly be used to back the start line up a little if a rail fence could be removed for the purpose.
The area behind the big cottonwood trees is where the start would have to wig-wag slightly before reaching the bridge. Obviously, the RVs on the left wouldn't be there for state cross country, but some RV hookups would be. Presumably, the pile of dirt in the upper left of the photo is not permanent. The pickup and RV you see on the far left are the same pickup and RV you see in the top photo in this series, looking across the bridge to the NPEC property.
This photo is of a completely different portion of the course---in the bridges section at about 450 to 500 meters of the current course. The trail has been built up here well above the creek level. The downside here, though, is that the course is narrower here than it was in the past. For one section, the usable width of the course is about seven feet, roughly the same as it is on both of the bridges (both of which are a little beyond this section).
Comments on this article are welcome. I ask you to keep a couple things in mind. One, in your comments, try to aim toward a best solution for all concerned. Spectators, athletes, coaches, and CHSAA each have a stake in the state cross country course and no two of those stakes are exactly alike. Two, please don't assume I'm just trying to stir a pot here. That is the furthest thing from my intent. I really would like to work toward a better solution for this fall (and beyond, if that is what it ends up being) at this venue. There are things I don't like about the course option I've described above, but it nevertheless represents an honest attempt to honor the stakes of all parties and provide a better race experience for coaches and athletes, one that allows for a broader range of race strategies than the current course.
To anticipate and answer one question: If the course above were altered to eliminate the southeast loop and double the west loop, it would be substantially longer than 5K. I already tried that option. :-/