The first half mile of the St. Vrain Invitational has become a bit of a crush of humanity. Colorado Track XC file photo.
Note: My apologies for leaving the Battle Mountain Invitational out of the first version of this article.
When you look at the schedule of meets for this coming weekend, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "How do they ever find enough teams to fill all of those meets?"
Somehow, in a state with barely more than 200 cross country programs, they do.
Let's start with the biggest of the big--the St. Vrain Invitational. This one pulls in over 50 schools, and it runs like clockwork. Only Mark Roberts would attempt to start varsity races on 25-minute intervals. Nobody keeps a meet moving like Coach Roberts.
The list of teams coming reads like a who's-who of Colorado high school cross country. Among the small schools look for ranked (or soon-to-be-ranked) teams like Telluride(!), Alexander Dawson, Berthoud, Estes Park, Holy...