The Week Ahead in Cross Country


Sophomore David Fine is enjoying a breakout year at Elizabeth. He gets to run in front of the home crowd on Tuesday. Photo by Alan Versaw.

As we all enjoy the long, slow exhale from Liberty Bell and St. Vrain, the inevitable slow, forward march of the calendar continues. There is cross country to be run this week!

Meet action resumes on Tuesday with Elizabeth and Florence hosting. Elizabeth's course doesn't have a specific name that I know of, but it has a reputation for plenty of ups and downs. As such, it's not even close to a screaming fast course. Under the right conditions, however, the Florence course at Pathfinder Park can become a screamer. Typically, it's kind of hot around Florence still in September, and that tends to slow down the race. It might not be so hot this Tuesday, however.

Elizabeth is getting a record (I believe) turnout of 23 teams. Florence isn't doing online registration through Colorado Track XC, so I don't have a good finger on the pulse of how many teams the Huskies are bringing in, but figure on it being less than 23.

The St. Vrain schools go after local bragging rights at their district meet on Sunset Golf Course on Wednesday. Like Elizabeth, this one is well-know as an over-hill-and-dale kind of course. That and a lot of grass tend to slow things down a little from the frenetic pace of this past weekend.

Air Academy and Brighton host on Thursday. Right now, Air Academy is at 22 teams, with online registration closing this afternoon. At this point, I don't see any teams with the Bulldog Alumni 5K listed on their calendar, though Barr Lake State Park could be a cool place to run a meet.

Air Academy runs in two divisions--large school and small school. For this year, at least, the Air Academy course reverts to its old configuration with the infamous hill at about the midway point. Nobody leaves that hill unchanged. Large schools score five and small schools score four. Large school JVs run with the small schools.

Friday welcomes a very full slate of meets hosted by: Arvada West, Broomfield, Fort Collins, Frontier Academy, Fort Morgan, Kennedy, and Durango. Of these, Fort Collins is typically the largest meet of the bundle, though Arvada West and Broomfield have been chipping away at the FoCo stranglehold in recent years. Frontier Academy figures to take some pressure off the small-school division at FoCo. 

It will be interesting to compare how results go at Durango versus how they went at Joe Vigil this past weekend, as the two meets figure to have substantially overlapping clienteles. There are only so many meet options in that corner of the state unless you're willing to do some serious travel. Typically, Durango pulls in a few New Mexico programs as well. It's a nice way for those schools to beat some heat at the expense of a little altitude.

Arvada West and Kennedy likely lay claim to the fastest courses of the Friday events. And, there's a fair bit of hard surface to be found at each of the venues, unless Durango has managed to avoid hard surface at their meet.

Saturday is a relatively quiet day for cross country around the state. You get to choose between two Western Slope meets and one Front Range meet. Rock Canyon hosts a typically fairly large meet at their campus in Highlands Ranch. Eagle Valley and Gunnison split up the Western Slope crowd that didn't already head for Durango on Friday. Eagle Valley draws heavily from the I-70 corridor. Gunnison pulls central Colorado teams, with an occasional draw from the San Luis Valley and down river into Montrose and Delta Counties.

Out-of-state operations that are relevant this weekend include Shiprock and Woodbridge. Shiprock may not get any Colorado teams this year due to being on the same weekend as Durango. But, we already have word that at least Mountain Vista and Palmer Ridge, having eschewed blazing times at Liberty Bell this past weekend, are now chasing blazing times at Woodbridge. Woodbridge is flat, fast, and low, with a good measure of hard surface thrown in. Woodbridge is also three miles, so at least those times won't skew virtual meet results back home.

Cheyenne Mountain, who did run Liberty Bell this past weekend, joins the other two Colorado teams in sunny southern California.

I have to send a friendly poke in the direction of Palmer Ridge Coach Larry Rudnicki on account of this. Ordinarily, Rudnicki is a hard surface's worst enemy, but evidently he's found an overriding consideration this weekend. Let me know how the sidewalks go, Larry. :-)

UPDATE: Well, it' appears Woodbridge has a new venue this year that is at least mostly devoid of concrete. Good for them! I don't know for certain, but I believe the race distance is still three miles.

Colorado Track XC coverage this week is pointed at Air Academy, Arvada West, and Eagle Valley. Ben Hershelman gets the Arvada West assignment. I'll take on Air Academy and Eagle Valley. With any luck, I'll be sent a photo or two of evidence from Woodbridge.

Photo submissions are always welcome if you want to send them along. I can usually find a way to use a nice, sharp image with as many articles as I need to illustrate each week.