For several years now, the Coronado Cougar Classic has featured an invitational 1600. This year, there will also be a middle school mile.* Photo by Alan Versaw.
Last week was the week of lost opportunity in track and field here in Colorado.
Rankings meets in Gunnison, Grand Junction, Colorado Springs, and Loveland bit the dust, or at least where dust would have been if it hadn't been so soggy outside. The Boulder County Championships and the Kiowa Klassic postponed to later dates. Other meets forged ahead, but often under conditions that seemed hospitable to nobody but distance runners.
So, this week becomes the week of making up for lost opportunity.
The opportunity for the Boulder County Championships comes this afternoon, but with most teams involved also competing this weekend, figure that this one won't be quite as tightly contested as it might have been had the meet taken place on Saturday under nice conditions.
Joining the Boulder County Championships on today's schedule are the Liberty Common Qualifier, a cozy little meet with five or six schools, the San Juan League meet in Ignacio, a qualifier a Jeffco Stadium, and other rankings meets hosted by Wray, Cheyenne Wells, and Battle Mountain.
Altogether, that makes for a lot of action on a Tuesday, so be sure to point your browser back to this site for results and updated rankings this evening. We'll get those up as quickly as possible.
JV and FR/SO meets take center stage on Wednesday, with DPS, Gunnison, St. Vrain Valley Schools, Weld County, and the PPAC each hosting one. We should be getting results from most or all of those meets. For many athletes, these will be season-ending meets, but several athletes will also be battling at these meets to keep their seasons alive. And, occasionally, that leads to some breakthrough performances.
Jeffco 5A comes late to the JV Championships crowd on Thursday.
Also on Thursday, however, are rankings meets at Delta, Primero, West Grand (pole vault only), and the SCL/Pueblo City meet at Dutch Clark. That, needless to say, is a busy Thursday in the grand scheme of things.
Busy, however, takes on a whole new meaning on Friday. Assuredly, this will be the busiest Friday of action we've seen all season. On slate are rankings meets hosted by Coronado, Cheyenne Mountain, Moffat County, Aztec (New Mexico), Fossil/Rocky, Montrose, and Cherry Creek. Adding to the melee are the Weld County Championships and the opening day of Liberty Bell.
And, Jeffco 4A joins the JV Championships party.
It doesn't slow down much on Saturday. The Liberty Bell and Aztec meets both continue into Saturday, having engaged in mostly prelims on Friday. Then, joining the Saturday party are Dick Evans (Wray), High Altitude (Alamosa), Thunder-Storm (Pueblo West/CSU-Pueblo), El Paso County Small Schools (St. Mary's/CSCS), Ram Charger (Green Mtn/Chatfield @ Jeffco), Springfield, Strasburg, and the Martinez CLASSic (Brighton).
Holy cow, folks, that's a bundle of track and field for one weekend! I'm not even close to looking forward to writing the weekend-in-review piece for this. I had no idea there were enough officials and timing companies in the state of Colorado to cover all these meets!
Colorado Track XC will be on-site with coverage in some form or fashion at Boulder County, Coronado, Thunder-Storm, El Paso County Small Schools, and another meet or two yet to be determined. The sudden late juggling of schedules had a ripple effect on coverage schedules, and I'm still trying to get all of that settled and worked out.
* - This year's middle school mile at the Coronado Cougar Classic will run at 5:15 PM. Arrive by 4:30 to warm up if you want to participate!
Coronado Cougar Classic meet page