Scrimmage meets are behind us. This week, the real deal of cross country returns.
That means the smell of burning gunpowder, the leaden feeling of quads working their way up one last hill, and the burning of lungs at the end of a race.
And, it all starts on Friday.
Up in Boulder, the New Balance Valmont Invitational takes its spin around the twists, turns, and obstacles of the Valmont Bike Park. There's too much excitement to deal with if they make it a full 5K, so they settled for 4K with an adrenaline release tank at the finish. Colorado Track XC won't be on hand for coverage of this one, but I do hope to snag a couple photos to share with the reading audience.
Mountain Vista also jumps on the short-course bandwagon with a two-miler on their own campus. If you're Facebook friends with Jonathan Dalby, you've seen a few preview images of this course. Of note, Palmer Ridge is making the short trip up to Douglas County to butt heads early with Mountain Vista.
Cherry Creek hosts their annual affair, recently re-christened to include the name of long-time cross country coach Steve Lohman, on Friday as well. This one looks to be a robust meet of around 20 teams. Several of those teams are ones that you're expecting to see on October 31, including what looks to be a very impressive Cherry Creek girls team. Colorado Track XC has coverage lined up for this one.
For the smaller schools (sort of) there is the Holy Family Invitational on their Broomfield campus. Holy Family is 4A these days, but the long-time ties with 3A remain. And, get used to it because Holy Family figures to be back in 3A again next year, anyway.
For everyone else, there is the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede at the newly revamped state course in Colorado Springs. There are some spectacular early-season showdowns to lick your chops over at this one, especially in 3A and 4A.
In the 3A division, we get to see just about the full set of big dogs. Alamosa, Lamar, Frontier Academy, Gunnison, Moffat County, Kent Denver, and many more will be there. Conspicuously missing from this crowd is Salida. I guess it means all these teams will have to wait a little longer to see what tricks Salida has in the bag for 2015.
In the 4A division, it gets heavy-duty in a hurry with Mountain View, Thompson Valley, Cheyenne Mountain, Widefield, Battle Mountain, Air Academy, Battle Mountain, Niwot, Valor, Wheat Ridge, and several more aiming at the "Green" race. Does "Green" mean Niwot wins? Show up and find out!
Yes, definitely, Colorado Track XC will be on-hand for coverage of this one.
All the actions takes a big shift westward on Saturday. Up a little into the high country, Basalt hosts their Longhorn Invitational at a bit of an uncharacteristically early date. But, there was a lot of shuffling of the Western Slope schedule this fall...
Down where it's nice and toasty warm (with no drenching rain in the forecast this year), Central hosts all comers at Matchett Park under the shadow of Mt. Garfield. And they will be wishing the for more of the shadow of Mt. Garfield before this one is over. Colorado Track XC will be providing on-site coverage of this one as well.
Before leaving, I'll tell you a copy of the Coyote Chase 5K results found its way to my computer. I know Monarch isn't real fond of having results of this race get out, so I'll just touch on a couple of things here. One, it doesn't look like the top echelon of returning runners for Monarch took this one out all that hard. Two, Tyler Scholl logged a substantial win of more than 30 seconds in this one with a 17:36. I'm guessing he was hoping for more Chase from the Coyotes.
It remains to be seen if Scholl runs for West Grand, Middle Park, or has some other plan in place for the season.
