Jared Leblow took a page out of Brie Oakley's book and buried the field at state snowshoe.
Running in Leadville is tough enough as it is. Never mind the part about strapping on snowshoes and running over snow.
Such were the challenges facing the state snowshoe competitors on the campus of Colorado Mountain College Saturday morning.
The distance was 5K, but you have to mentally adjust the times to fit the circumstances.
On this day, Grand Junction Central's Jared Leblow simply had no peers. Leblow finished in 23:02, better than three minutes ahead of second-place Jemil Kassahun of Smoky Hill in the high school standings. In fact, in the overall field it was Leblow's own father, Ted Leblow, who had the second-place finish in 25:52.
Taryn Ceglowski led the finishers among high school girls at 28:58. The first female finisher, however, will be in the middle school ranks for another year. Lanie Szuch took female overall honors in 26:29.
Poudre's 21 points (scoring four) took home boys team honors, followed by Central with 25 and Smoky Hill with 32. Central was the only school with four female finishers and so won the girls crown by default.