Weld Central's Tyler Offner will be taking his triple jump show to the Elbert High School track on Saturday. Colorado Track XC file photo.
Most of the state is on spring break this week, but you wouldn't know it by the way the meets on this week's schedule are raking in the entries. Chalk it up to teams scrambling to get events for athletes who haven't seen much meet action yet in March. With massive cancellations on both March 9 and March 23, several athletes have had only minimal opportunities to compete thus far this season. So, schools that are hosting meets this week are seeing unusually high demand on those meets.
Lamar is running their postponed meet today with most of the schools originally slated to come on Saturday still showing up. Roosevelt's Randall Hess Invitational has moved to Longmont on Wednesday and retained most of their orginally entered teams. They may even have picked up a couple of teams in the process. As of this moment, the Randall Hess is looking at an entry load (closing in on 700 athletes) that would make for a good-sized Saturday meet. Things will be busy tomorrow at Everly-Montgomery Field in Longmont.
The Altitude Running Invitational meet, hosted by Fort Collins High School, has picked up a several schools--some with large numbers of entries and some with just a small handful of entries. The La Junta and Elbert meets on Thursday and Saturday, respectively, have been full and closed for some time.
I'm guessing the other meets hosting this weekend (to include Broomfield, Yuma, and Cedaredge) are similarly deluged with entries and entry requests. Whether they planned on this many teams or not, Broomfield currently has over 40 teams listing the meet on their schedule. Pack a lunch and plan to stay for a while for that one: it's conceivable that Broomfield ends up with the biggest invitational of the season. I'll publish the number of athlete entries when the meet closes.
Cedaredge's meet promises to be a lane-buster largely because it is the only western slope action of the weekend, although a few San Juan Basin schools are headed to Aztec, New Mexico, for some meet action south of the state line. The list of teams doing entries for Cedaredge is impressive, indeed. They'll be seeing teams from Nucla to Crested Butte, from Rangely to Dolores, and all points in between.
Gunnison, the travel champions of Colorado, is bypassing Cedaredge to go to Fort Collins this weekend.
Meets that are more or less closed entry this week include the Centennial League Spring Break meet and the Mile High League Early Season meet. The naming of these meets suggest that they are not open to entries not already aligned with the meet titles. The Northern Colorado Golden Spike Series also figures to be a small, closed set of schools in order to retain the familiar feel and efficiency of the meet schedule.
With numerous students traveling across the country--and beyond--over spring break, it's tough to say exactly what match-ups we're going to see this weekend, but I'll be posting start lists and heat sheets for all meets granting permission to do that. Keep checking the front page here on Colorado Track XC for those to appear. Then, bring your mobile device to the meet and have an instant meet program at your fingertips!
See you at the meets! Colorado Track XC will be on site, at some level, at Randall Hess, the Centennial League Spring Break meet, and the Altitude Running Invitational this weekend.