You have to admire spunk. And, the folks running the Joe Vigil Invitational have spunk oozing out of their pores right now.
That's right, the Joe Vigil, the longest running and arguably most successful college/high school meet in the state has set up shop on the very weekend that hosts Liberty Bell and the St. Vrain Invitational. In case you forgot from last fall, those two meets more or less shut down everything else that weekend all across the state.
Now, though the door walks the Joe Vigil Invitational, a bold entry on the fall calendar run at 7554 feet of elevation, but on a blistering course. And, by blistering, we mean fast. The course is consistently flat and stays mostly to hard-packed golf cart paths.
Before proceeding any further here, it should be noted that I'm making an assumption that Liberty Bell will run on September 9 this fall. That would be the same place on the calendar as last fall, but word about Liberty Bell for this fall has been a lot on the side of sparse. You can go to the Heritage High School cross country web page and find precisely nothing about this fall's edition of Liberty Bell.
Rumors have been afloat for the last year or so that the local parks district gave Liberty Bell some kind of ultimatum about the size of their meet. If, indeed, that happened, it could very well be that the absence of news about the date and size of this year's Liberty Bell has a whole lot to do with negotiations over that very issue.
In any case, it's a very bold move on the part of the Joe Vigil to settle into that weekend, thought it could turn out to be a very shrewd move as well.
For years (almost) out of memory, Adams State has hosted this meet on the Cattails Golf Course on the north side of the Rio Grande in Alamosa. It's been a college/high school/middle school meet as long as I can remember and the only one of its kind here in Colorado throughout much, perhaps most, of its 23-year tenure. The meet was initiated in 1994, the year after legendary coach Joe Vigil retired from Adams State University (then Adams State College).
That's all well and good, but the Joe Vigil has also announced plans to up their game this fall.
Most notably, in the past, the Joe Vigil has lumped all levels of high school runners into a single race for each gender. They are hoping to kiss that tradition good-bye this fall, aiming at separate junior varsity races at the end of the meet.
But, the Joe Vigil is also looking to spread its draw beyond the traditional entries coming from the San Luis Valley and northern New Mexico. Each year, a few "outside the Valley" Colorado teams make the trip, but hopes are to see that become much more of a flow than a trickle.
Perhaps no meet in New Mexico or Colorado provides a better forum for cross-state competition. Last fall, two of the best small-school programs in all of New Mexico--Pecos and Taos--were present at the Joe Vigil, along with Santa Fe and Moriarty. The Joe Vigil has consistently drawn well out of New Mexico. If meet organizers can make it sufficiently attractive to more larger schools, this meet has the potential to become a very interesting interstate showdown event.
And, of course, it always has been a great meet to rub shoulders with some of the top collegiate runners in the state.
So, now you know a little of what's going on down in Alamosa. For more information about the particulars of the meet, please point your browser here.