September Fades into October


Rye's Makayla Rodriguez gets to pound out a few thousand strides in front of the home folks this week. Photo by Alan Versaw.

Yes, indeed, there are a lot of meets on the Colorado calendar for the week ahead of us.

When you see this many meets on the calendar, you may rely on this one thing--none of those meets are especially large meets. 

And, two out-of-state meets loom large on the horizon: Desert Twilight and Stanford. I already know Colorado will have a substantial representation at Desert Twilight. I don't know if any Colorado teams are pointed at Palo Alto this year, but it will be the first time in many years if Colorado is not represented at that meet. Clearly, though, Desert Twilight is the bigger draw with the Colorado crowd now.

Planning on making the trip are delegations from Air Academy, Peak to Peak, Silver Creek, The Classical Academy, and doubtless more than I don't yet know about. And, Colorado Track XC will be on-hand for coverage from Casa Grande. 

Back at home, the week begins with the Runners Roost Invitational at Chatfield State Park on Tuesday. This is a new meet, so there isn't much known yet about the meet. Meets have come and gone out of Chatfield in the past, but staying power has been a tough thing to come by at this venue, so we'll wish this meet well in its new endeavor.

Rye will also be hosting at the Hollydot West Golf Course in Colorado City on Tuesday. It's been several years since Rye has hosted a meet, but they look to have a decent cross section of teams headed their way. It would be good to see this meet succeed as there is a definite dearth of meets hosted in the Pueblo area these days.

Dakota Ridge hosts on Wednesday at the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield. The venue's relationship with cross country has been tenuous, at best, so please do your best to keep things positive there (as you would for any other meet) if you're going there. I don't have any idea of an estimate of the number of teams attending.

Also on Wednesday, the Greeley City Championships roll out of Josephine Jones Park. Greeley won't be done hosting cross country for the week with this one, but this one is an exclusive thing to Greeley schools that the meet later in the week won't be. It's probably a safe assumption that not everyone in attendance will be running for a city title, though certainly some will be.

As best as I can tell, the only meet in the state on Thursday runs at and over the Royal Gorge. Canon City, of course, takes the honor of hosting the meet with the state's longest water crossing. As yet, though, nobody has managed to get their feet wet. And, there must be something to a meet on the juniper-and-cactus studded hills west of Canon City. At this point, 25 teams are pointing buses in the direction of the meet. Colorado Track XC will be on-hand for coverage of this one. Go where the people go, right?

Friday high school meets are in Denver, Thornton, and Delta. Denver West hosts at Bear Valley Park (which isn't really very near at all to Denver West High School), Thornton hosts at the nearby Margaret Carpenter Rec Center. Delta hosts at Sweitzer Lake State Park. Denver West and Delta figure to be smaller meets. 

Thornton, however, is as close to a mega meet as we'll see here in Colorado this weekend. The sidewalks will be packed with cross country runners from near and far--including teams from as far as Sheridan, Wyoming. And, you thought you had a long bus ride ahead of you this weekend...

A meet as large as Thornton requires a large personality for coverage, so I've dispatched Ben Hershelman to provide us with his quirky insights on all that takes place.

Saturday's schedule resumes Andy Myers in Greeley, the Central Warrior in Grand Junction (probably minus a couple of the traditional course obstacles), the Chicken Creek Challenge just outside of Mancos, the Glenwood Springs Demon at its new golf course digs (frankly, running around soccer fields never did seem that interesting to me), the Mead Stampede on the east side of Longmont, the Rampart Foxes and Hounds (an adventure in alternate scoring) at Cottonwood Creek Park in Colorado Springs, and the Salida Invitational at Vandaveer Ranch.

Historically, Andy Myers takes in a fair bit of pavement along its way and is a more competitive meet than the Greeley City Championships. Perhaps the new home at Island Grove Park for Andy Myers will resolve some of the asphalt-and-concrete issues that have plagued the Andy Myers meet in the past. At one point, this venue was trying to make a play for hosting some state meets. I don't know if that's still in the picture or not, but you can certainly get an early preview here if it is.

The Chicken Creek Challenge enjoys an almost cult-like devotion among the teams that make the trip. It doesn't hurt that it's a nice cool location very close to some serious heat in New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona. Teams come from far and wide to run along paths through the ponderosa that will become ski trails onoce the snow starts falling. It's more or less a given that nobody sets a PR at this meet.

Salida has been plagued with non-stop issues of finding a permanent location for their meet. Kenny Wilcox has probably drawn up more home course iterations than any other five coaches in the state--save, perhaps, for Mark Roberts. In any case, this is year two at Vandaveer Ranch. Too bad that golf course development west of Poncha Springs went belly up...

Finally, and we hold our breath a little in anticipation of this one, Mountain Vista has negotiated a little with Metro State to become part of their annual affair at Washington Park in Denver. If you've been to Washington Park, you need no introduction. Guess what, spikes are recommended for this course. Athletes will run a 2K and a 3K loop on the grass of the finest city park in the entire state.

It appears 14 high school teams will be in attendance, including several of Colorado's best. Broomfield, Mountain Vista, Fort Collins, Palmer Ridge, and more, are coming. I'm working on securing some coverage for this one...