Samantha Blair eyed the quickly rolling tires of the lead bike.
Six minutes into the race and that was all she had for competition.
Behind her was an abyss that stretched beyond what the eye could see. But in front of her, well, she had the lead bike to chase.
And so it goes.
The Eagle Valley senior made absolutely no contest of Saturday's Windjammer Invitational in Englewood. From the opening strides over thick wet grass and mud, to the three paved loops that circled Englewood High, it was all Blair.
She stormed off and away to the first big victory of her season. And it wasn't just about winning, it was also about running fast.
Blair dropped the second-fastest time ever run on the course - an 18:13 clocking.
Add that the course has only seen 15 sub-19 performances over the past decade.
While Blair torched the course, the embers had some time to cool before anyone else had to race over them. They had about a minute-and-a-half in fact.
Jordan Neifert came up with a monster performance, running a Colorado personal best of 19:43. Neifert's finish gave Eagle Valley the most coveted of 1-2 punches - the literal 1-2 punch.
Behind her, Eliana Caucutt and Ella Hedman battled over the final stretch of thick grass to finish 3-4, running 19:54, and 19:55.
As the individual race was wrapped up before the mile, all eyes shifted towards the team race.
Green Mountain put three inside the top-10, with Lucy Bell, Brooke Tompkins, and Jadyn Laster finishing 7-8-10, and they wrapped their scoring by putting five before everyone else's three - the put their entire top-five inside the top-16.
Green Mountain tallied an impressive 44 points to claim the team title. Highlands Ranch took second with 82 points, while Arapahoe took third with 97.
RESULTS | PHOTOS | VIDEOS
Next Page: Jake Drever makes it an Eagle Valley sweep of the individual races...