State course updates and review

Early morning light on the section between Little and Big Willis. All photos by Alan Versaw.

If you haven't been to the state course lately, there's been a lot of changes in the last month.

This article deals solely with changes on the Bear Creek Regional Park side of the course, and the Norris Penrose Event Center side is not open to the general public except on Friday afternoon and Saturday.

We'll begin with a summary of changes and then discuss some of the more important changes in detail later on. For easy reference, I've included a copy of the course map here at the beginning:

1. The creek crossing looks much the same as it did last year. At this point at least--though changes could be made tomorrow--the creek crossing is unchanged from last year. The race will go through the creek both going out and coming in.

2. As you hit the top, the level area, coming out of the creek, it appears that the spectator barriers are set back a foot or two from previous editions of the meet, affording the racers a little more space through this corridor (photo, below).

3. The changes in The Bridges section of the course are acts of nature. Although the changes have been remedied some by human intervention since this summer's rains, expect some loose footing through an early portion (outbound) of The Bridges section. This section of looser footing lasts perhaps 30 meters altogether, with a section of about 10 meters being the worst.

4. The Boulevard is, as of this morning, the same as last year except that heavy trucks have been using this part of the trail to transport loads of crushed rock for the trail. As such, it is now highly compacted and moderately rutted in spots. It is not immediately clear if this section will be resurfaced before the state meet, but the answer to that question should be obvious at Friday afternoon's course inspection.

5. New trail surface has been added to the base of Little Willis, but--at least as of this morning--most of Little Willis is a mess of heavy equipment tracks. I find it difficult in the extreme to believe it will be left in such condition for Saturday's state meet (photo, below).

6. From the top of Little Willis, all the way up Big Willis, and completely around Westend Drop Out (save for one section of about five meters where overhanging trees may have made it impossible to get a truck in to dump a load of crushed rock), and up to the parking lot at the west end of The Bridges section now has an entirely new 4-6" layer of crusher fine trail base. It is a softer surface, at least for now, than the old trail surface and subject to minor irregularities where the loads were not dumped in perfectly uniform fashion, but there is nothing anywhere around this loop that could be considered even remotely outside of the norms for cross country.

7. Back through The Bridges section and across the creek is, once again, little changed from previous years' versions of the course. Getting trucks with trail material into The Bridges section would be a serious undertaking, and it seems safe to say we won't see a new surface through that section as we will in other sections. At least not for Saturday.

That's the summary of the changes. Now, let's discuss the meaning of those changes...

The new trail surface, not yet completely compacted and with a few minor bumps and irregularities, means the course is unlikely to run as fast as in previous years. Since nobody is setting their 5K PR on this course, anyway, that should be a concern of only trivial signficance. The softer surface does, however, likely make the course more of a spikes (as opposed to flats) course than it was previously.

All erosion strips from the former trail surface have been covered over by the new layer of crusher fine. El Paso County has marked the locations of the old erosion strips in what appears to reflect an intent to replace those strips, but, for Saturday at least, the former strips should be out of the way of the runners. This removes several tripping hazards on the course and thus makes the Drop In section of the course coming off Hodgson Hill substantially safer. It is not without risks, but it is definitely safer than before.

Probably the biggest concern with the new trail surface is that it effectively narrows the usable trail width in many places. Late in the races, this may not be too much of an issue, but early in the races, when trail width is at a premium, we could see a little more compressing of the pack. This narrowing of the trail is a result of not always spreading the new crushed rock surface out to the full width of the pre-existing trail (photo, below).

A couple of turns have had some of the rounding off of those turns trimmed away by the new trail surface. At this point, it's unclear if Cheyenne Mountain will cone off the old rounding of the turns (such as at the turn at the base of Big Willis, as shown below) or leave runners to decide for themselves whether to stay on the rebuilt trail or take their chances in the looser, and sometimes choppier, stuff on the inside of the turn (photo, below).

On the off chance that Little Willis is not renovated before Saturday's races, competitors need to be prepared for some very choppy footing going up that section.

El Paso County has been doing the work on the park trails, and the work has been ongoing for the better part of a month now. The proximity of Saturday's state meet, however, undoubtedly puts a greater sense of urgency on getting some things done on a compressed timetable. Cheyenne Mountain High School has been assured that the County is mindful of the meet scheduled to take place on Saturday.

As usual, this administration of this meet requires a lot of pieces--including, but not limited to, CHSAA, Cheyenne Mountain High School, El Paso County Parks, the Norris Penrose Event Center, and Runners Roost. All have an important hand in what you see on Saturday. All are working very hard to make the best possible event for Saturday.