If racing at 7703 feat above sea level wasn't hard enough already, runners had another obstacle to overcome - the heat.
Coming into Mountaineer Cowboy Invite, Gunnison's Colton Stice was a favorite to win the race, being that it was his home course.
Additionally with the course sitting at 7,703 feet above sea level, Stice had a significant advantage over his competition.
Unfortunately, none of his advantages lead to him winning the race. Stice had an impressive race finishing in third, but Heritage Christian Academy's Seth Bruxvoort brought his A-game to Gunnison.
Bruxvoort cruised past Stice in the final mile and never looked back.
Despite Bruxvoort being nervous about Stice, he came into the race looking to win it all.
Seth Bruxvoort surges to the lead ahead of Colton Stice.
Bruxvoort won the race with a time of 16:08.33, 15.35 seconds better than second place finisher Sean Graff, who finished in 16:22, while Stice held on for third, finishing in 16:32.
The success Bruxvoort had on the day, may be due in large part to the fact the Heritage Christian arrived the night before and got a good night's rest.
"We came from Fort Collins the night before, so we were able to get a good night sleep and sleep in," Bruxvoort explained. The win was his second win of the season. "It really paid off getting that extra rest."
3A No. 1 Salida picked up another great team performance, winning with 53 points. Heritrage Christian was just 10 points back with 63, good for second. And Grandview took third with 85 points.
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